Template talk:Supreme Court of Canada sidebar

New photo for the sidebar

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: You undid the change in photo recently. Here are reasons in more detail why I think the sidebar photo should be changed to the one I replaced it with.

1. Winter photo, while natural for a Canadian building, still looks dreary. Not a photo you would see on any of the pamphlets website splash page of the supreme court.

2. There is an ugly shadow along the bottom 1/8th of the photo. Not ideal, completely preventable, and distracting to the viewer.

3. The steps are not completely free of snow. Poor shoveling job is distracting to the viewer.

4. Crisper image. For example the summer photo you can actually read veritas under the statue. Not possible with the more lower resolution (or poorly focused) winter photo.

5. Summer image is more current (the flag posts in 2012 have since been removed).

Your thoughts please. Dig _deeper ^talk 02:10, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: If there are no objections or responses to the above reasons to change the image, I'll assume you have changed your mind and I'll replace the winter image with the more up to date, higher quality summer image. Dig _deeper ^talk 22:39, 1 October 2018 (UTC)

Thank you for the courteous response. However, I disagree with your characterization of the snow as dreary. That seems too subjective a comment to decide this issue. My basic point, though, is that the picture reflects what the Supreme Court looks like during the winter, when it is hearing cases. The Court starts hearing cases in late October and sits mainly through the winter. If you want a picture of what the Court looks like when it's at work, one with snow is the most accurate view. A summer picture shows the building when the Court is not at work. I think it makes sense to have a picture of what the Court looks like its busiest time. Mr Serjeant Buzfuz (talk) 12:10, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: You've made a good case against the dreary argument. You're correct in that "dreary" has a subjective element. I did a strike through on that. Let's put the dreary issue aside. Your position that the summer photo does not reflect its appearance during its hours of operation is worthy of consideration. I suppose the question is (and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm not out to misrepresent your words/position): Should photos of government buildings reflect their normal hours of operation or busiest time? It is a good question. I haven't come across this before. Later this week, when I have more time, I'll look into the Wikipedia policies and guidelines and see if photo context (in time) typically trumps photo quality/esthetics. I'll also look over some other similar Wikipedia pages and see if this common. In the meantime can you please comment on points 1b through to point 5. I'm interested in your thoughts on these points as well. ThanksDig _deeper ^talk 20:13, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

@Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: I could not find any policy or guideline that indicates that an image should be the appearance during normal operating hours. They do mention "representative image", which is not so specific. Given that the image on the court of Canada website splash page is in the summer, it would be hard to argue that a summer photo is not representative.

'It is common for an article's lead or infobox to carry a representative image—such as of a person or place, a book or album cover—to give readers visual confirmation that they've arrived at the right page.' from MOS:IMAGELEAD

As for other government buildings, I noticed that Parliament Hill is a summer photo, when parliament is not in session. Similarly Rideau Hall is also a summer photo. Similarly Parliament Building (Quebec) is in the summer.

@Moxy: The summer photo I added is of higher quality (larger file that can zoom in) than the summer photo you had posted. Do you have a preference between the 2? Dig _deeper ^talk 17:39, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

Why are we adding a photo that looks foggy or full of smoke? Best restore norm.--Moxy (talk) 17:43, 13 October 2018 (UTC)

@Moxy:It seems @Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: feels that the winter photo (technically the original photo) is more representative. I think I can understand his point of view. My preference is the photo below. My reasons are stated above. I welcome additional feedback from both of you.

Supreme court of Canada in summer

Dig _deeper ^talk 01:03, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

@Moxy: @Mr Serjeant Buzfuz: I'm going to replace the image with the high quality, summer image above. If there are any concerns or additional discussions needed, feel free to indicate below.Dig _deeper ^talk 23:22, 17 October 2018 (UTC)