Another early twentieth century archival photo: a military sword dance in celebration of an Ottoman victory during World War I. Unfortunately no data available on exact date or location, but a fascinating cultural document with an attractive composition. Restored version of Image:Men dancing with swords.jpg.
Support as nominator --DurovaCharge! 21:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)
Support A great image which meets the criteria. The encyclopedic value seems huge. Nick Dowling (talk) 11:21, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Weak Support. The angle is kind of akward, and the sword dance is blurry (but that's understandable; they're moving!), and that detracts from its EV, but it's the best illustration of a sword dance on the page, and the quality is good. What sells it are the expressions on the onlookers' faces. Intothewoods29 (talk) 16:02, 29 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose for being overexposed, grainy, and not very sharp. We can forgive technical flaws of historical images if they are super-encyclopedic, but I think this is only moderately encyclopedic. Sword dancing does not appear to be an extinct practice, so I expect a good photographer with a modern camera could take an amazing picture. Fletcher (talk) 22:58, 30 July 2008 (UTC)
The Ottoman Empire ceased to exist very shortly after this image was taken and the successor state actively turned its back on much of its distinctive customs. DurovaCharge! 09:16, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. A valuable and interesting image, but the quality is not quite there in my view.--ragesoss (talk) 16:09, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
Support Edit 1 - The quality is now decent and the image still has a very high value. --Arad (talk) 16:53, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose It's too hard to see the actual dance that's going on here. This image of a Bedouin woman dancing with a sword is far more compelling visually and would be much more helpful to readers of the article. I'm starting to restore it, then I'll upload it. Calliopejen1 (talk) 20:00, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I've put my alternate image to the right. I think this would be a much better lead image, because you can actually see the person dancing with the sword. It's also a really interesting cultural document in its own right--this isn't the stereotypical image of a Middle Eastern woman. Calliopejen1 (talk) 22:12, 2 August 2008 (UTC)
I was looking at that one too when I selected this. DurovaCharge! 03:09, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
This one is faar more special with the WWI setting. Just my 2 cents --66.36.134.61 (talk) 04:36, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose, but Support the new one! --Blechnic (talk) 06:43, 3 August 2008 (UTC)
Oppose. Angle helps to get a good view of the crowd, but also helps to obscure the action of the dance. Clegs (talk) 15:03, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
