File talk:Indulgence.png

Doubts about authenticity

(copied dialogue from w:en:User talk:Ihcoyc and w:en:User talk:Future Perfect at Sunrise:)

Hi Ihcoyc, a long time ago you apparently uploaded this lovely image:

This is described as an authentic indulgence by Tetzel, but it has no source. Are you sure it is authentic? I'd like to see a source, because, to my mind, the writing and language looks suspiciously like a modern fake. I'm not an expert and can't prove anything right now, but this doesn't look like 16th century German to me. Fut.Perf. ☼ 16:25, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

I scanned that in out of a library book, about four years ago. I am not even sure I remember the title now. It may or may not be authentic, but if it is fake, it isn't one of mine. - Smerdis of Tlön 20:17, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your answer - of course I didn't mean to imply you faked it. :-) But what shall we do now, would it be a lot of trouble going back and trying to find the source again? By the way, this is an authentic indulgence from that time; you'll see the difference. The whole language and orthography of this one is essentially modern (like, "ü" written with a modern umlaut, "u" and "v" distinguished in the modern way, modern capitalisation almost throughout, modern punctuation... and the letter shapes have more of a later feel too, but I could be mistaken about that.) Would it be safer to remove the image from article space? Fut.Perf. ☼ 21:16, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

That second image that you linked to is probably superior to the one I uploaded quite long ago for several reasons, and being a reproduction of a piece of graphic art, is surely permissible to snag and clean up. (I'd convert it into a greyscale PNG and remove some of the JPEG artifacts, and the German text below.) Come to think of it, the use of long s in that image I uploaded is inconsistent also. - Smerdis of Tlön 22:55, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, this image, though I agree that it is likely inauthentic, has found its way into many different space places across the project, including user awards. Since it pretends to be something it unlikely is, I don't see any issue with it remaining, but a caveat should be issued for its encyclopedic use. - Smerdis of Tlön 14:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

Agree, as a userspace joke it's quite nice. Thanks for getting those other images uploaded, good job. Future Perfect at Sunrise 16:22, 9 July 2007 (UTC)