Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests/Ted Kaczynski

Ted Kaczynski edit

This is the archived discussion of the TFAR nomination for the article below. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as Wikipedia talk:Today's featured article/requests). Please do not modify this page.

The result was: scheduled for Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 11, 2021 by Gog the Mild (talk) 12:00, 25 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Kaczynski in 1996 after his arrest

Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber, is an American domestic terrorist, primitivist and former mathematics professor. He was accepted to Harvard College at the age of 16 and after graduating and earning his PhD, he taught at UC Berkeley for three years. He then moved to a small cabin in Montana to pursue a simple life. While in Montana, Kaczynski began sending mail bombs to people associated with universities, airlines, and the advancement of modern technology. He mailed a total of 16 bombs, killing three people and injuring 23 others. Kaczynski's bombing campaign came under investigation by the FBI, who employed over 150 people in the most expensive FBI investigation ever conducted at the time. Kaczynski's manifesto, an anarcho-primitivist essay, was published in The Washington Post on the condition that he would desist from terrorism. He was eventually arrested in 1996 and later imprisoned at ADX Florence in Colorado. (Full article...)

Most recent similar article(s): None that I'm aware of; most recent Culture & Society article was in January about Elizabeth Willing Powel, an 1800s Philadelphia socialite.
Main editors: AviationFreak
Promoted: March 27, 2021
Reasons for nomination: This would be my first FA at TFA (as it is my first FA) & is a level-5 vital article. The article is quite popular, always ranking among the 1000 most-viewed pages.
Support as nominator. By blurb-writing skills are not the best, so if anyone has suggestions on how to improve the blurb they would be welcomed. AviationFreak💬 18:32, 30 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: Wouldn't it make more sense to have the image be the famous mug shoot? DMT biscuit (talk) 12:40, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @DMT biscuit: I don't have a preference either way - I chose the image above because it's not the "lead image" in the article, so hovering/clicking on the article will give an immediate second view of the subject. AviationFreak💬 13:21, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - Sufficent reasoning: Support. DMT biscuit (talk) 13:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: It feels like an odd omission that "Unabomber" isn't used at any point in the blurb. Morgan695 (talk) 15:29, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Morgan695: I agree - I had originally added "also known as the Unabomber" just after his name, but this exceeded the 1025-char limit. I wasn't sure what to cut from the blurb to make that fit, so I ended up removing it. AviationFreak💬 15:57, 1 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
  - @AviationFreak: perhaps replace "Kaczynski" with "he" in some places, and at the start do "Ted Kaczynski (the Unabomber)"? Anyway, support, quite an interesting topic and an impressive FA. Elli (talk | contribs) 06:57, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
    - @Elli: I really prefer "also known as the Unabomber" - I replaced some instances of "Kaczynski" with "he", now everything fits with 2 characters to spare! Let me know if the "he"s sound awkward to you, but I think it looks alright at the moment. AviationFreak💬 14:06, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support, but wowza. At first glance, this just looks like a student got their notable Harvard teacher to the front page out of respect. But then I hovered over the link and saw his mugshot... Panini!^🥪 14:25, 10 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Support using mugshot first of all, it is more recognizable to the average viewer, and second, relatively few will click on or preview the page (preview doesn't work on mobile anyway, the majority of our readers) and third, even on my laptop I don't see the mugshot in the hover preview. (t · c) buidhe 04:52, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
- @Buidhe: Updated with mugshot. AviationFreak💬 12:54, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Comment The blurb needs some more work. I changed some of the text to reflect the article more. Including reference to the MK Ultra experiment is a bit odd, since it doesn't seem too related to anything. Harizotoh9 (talk) 21:58, 12 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Including reference to the MK Ultra experiment is a bit odd, since it doesn't seem too related to anything -- au contraire, it's plenty related. There's pretty extensive speculation about the connection between Kaczynski's MK Ultra experiences and the later murders. Vaticidalprophet 02:56, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support, though honestly I preferred the non-mugshot image. Per WP:MUG, I'd really rather we not put mugshots of living people on the front page of one of the biggest websites when there are other acceptable options. Vaticidalprophet 02:56, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I can definitely see where you're coming from as far as image concerns (in both the literal and metaphorical use of the word "image"!), but I don't think WP:MUG really applies here. I don't think the mugshot displays Kaczynski out of context, though it is disparaging. Definitely interested to hear what other editors have to say here - unfortunately it doesn't look like commons:Category:Ted Kaczynski has any other options unless we want to use a (likely grainy and difficult-to-identify) crop of File:Tk arrest.jpg. AviationFreak💬 03:02, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

It's a recognizable and contextual image, but mugshots are inherently disparaging enough that I really pause at putting them on the front page. (Doing bad things doesn't strip us of our need to be respectful and neutral towards our article subjects, y'know?) The original Harvard image was fine, and still a recognizable depiction of him -- I've seen it attached to him plenty. I also think your original justification of 'not repeating the lead image' is a pretty good one regardless of what the lead image is. Vaticidalprophet 03:08, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Support. I understand the above concern about the mugshot, but I disagree that the original image would be as recognizable as the mugshot. I actually showed the original image to my brother and he was surprised as he was not used to seeing older images of Kaczynski, and I think it would be better to go with the more recognizable image. Again, I completely understand the WP:MUG concern, but I do not think the other image is as instantly recognizable to a larger audience as the mugshot. Aoba47 (talk) 20:39, 13 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Aoba47: Is recognizability the main characteristic we're looking for in an image? This is my first time at TFAR, but I would expect the main quality folks here look for in an image to be proper representation of the subject. I definitely agree that the mugshot is far more engrained in the public psyche as "the image" of Kaczynski (besides the famous police sketch), but I don't see how that makes it an inherently better image to use. We regularly (perhaps even more often than not) run blurbs on relatively obscure topics that the average reader probably has never heard of before reading the TFA blurb/image. I don't have any definite preference one way or the other on the image, but I do think it's important to get this agreed upon. As we've seen recently, TFA images can be quite contentious. AviationFreak💬 04:03, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@AviationFreak: Thank you for the message. I am not the best person to answer that question. While I have worked somewhat in the TFA space, that question would be better suited for more experienced editors. My comment was in response to the above discussion that the original image would still be recognizable and I just do not think that is true. I believe even a lot of people familiar with this person would not immediately recognize him in the original image. I do not have an issue going back to the original image, but the mugshot is clearly and without any doubt the most recognizable to a large audience. I agree that it is best to handle these things prior to a main page run. I do not see the connection with obscure TFAs at all. This is a very well-known topic so the conversation around images and recognizability will be very different than for a TFA on an obscure topic. Also, just to repeat my above point, I can completely understand the WP:MUG concerns and I would support it with either picture (as people who may not recognize the original image could still read the blurb and understand who the article is about). With all of that being said, prior to this conversation, I knew absolutely nothing about this guy other than the Unambomber name. Aoba47 (talk) 18:44, 14 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]