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"Wikipedia is not censored" is not a good enough reason to have such a disgusting image at the top. There could be a section later in the page, with a warning that you have to click through to see that image. The main image makes me want to never visit Wikipedia again. I don't want to be forced to look at horrifying images.91.158.66.11 (talk)22:44, 26 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia, like it or not, is the number one research resource for most internet users, on all manner of topics. We should recognise (and respect) that some visitors may be upset by certain imagery, even if they can comfortably digest the information presented in the text. Is there no mechanism for applying a 'click to see image' filter?2A00:23C7:3119:AD01:D065:7EEC:4667:EFD6 (talk)20:37, 15 February 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The fact that some people have queasy stomachs shouldn't mean the removal of relevant and helpful imagery. Portraying such an extreme case is helpful in that it make the hallmarks of the disease very obvious.MadePublic (talk)01:26, 30 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
the image, which no one is forcing you to look at, should make you feel empathy for the suffering of this child. and after you read a paragraph or two, when you read that 300 million people were estimated to have died from smallpox in the twentieth century, you should be considering yourself lucky a) to have evaded the clutches of this disfiguring killer and b)that you live in a time and place where accurate information about this virus (and other viruses) is freely available.70.31.166.89 (talk)22:50, 28 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]
Wikipedia shouldn't make me "feel" anything. Wikipedia shouldn't make me "consider myself lucky" about anything. Wikipedia should inform and educate, and how its users respond to that information is not Wikipedia's job to dictate.
The fact is, of the several images of smallpox infections in this article, many of them are successful in portraying the horrifying disfiguration that can be caused by this disease. They are all stillorders of magnitude less likely to cause a traumatically shocking reaction in the reader than the one chosen for the main image.
I'd be first in line to promote this image back to the main spot if Wikipedia had a "hide sensitive imagery" setting. But that has been talked about for over a decade. The options that actually exist today are absurd suggestions for this issue. You can either hideevery image by default, which, if you think about it, is no help to people that only want to avoid the sensitive stuff. If you don't already know what smallpox is, you have no idea what you're in for. Or you can install browser scripts to block specific images once you already know what they are ... which is a solution for absolutely no one.
This feels very off-brand for Wikipedia. We can all think of subjects that don't have graphic, disturbing photo representations of that thing, and for good reason. If they did, andSmallpox was the norm instead of an outlier, there'd be a lot more pressure for a sensitive-blur setting that was on by default. I'm sure I could visit LiveLeak and find an image that is objectively "better" for theStabbing article than the 16th-century painting that's currently there, but since common sense is the norm for Wikipedia, the painting remains.Eyevandy (talk)19:17, 11 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]
This image description is currently just a religious slandering with an attempt to link it "Likely" to smallpox:
Likely hemorrhagic smallpox during a 1925 Milwaukee, Wisconsin epidemic in a patient who later died. Patient described as an unvaccinated Christian Scientist, who "thought that he could by power of mind prevent smallpox."
Should be more neutral and with a respectable source mentioned: "Patient with hemorrhagic smallpox during a 1925 Milwaukee, Wisconsin epidemic [link to source]"— Precedingunsigned comment added byXXX (talk)04:36, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Change was an undocumented addition inthis 25 December 2021 revision byFeatous. The language is derived from thesource (Archived link), but Featous replaced the caption of the image ("A patient likely suffering from hemorrhagic smallpox in a 1925 Milwaukee, Wisconsin, epidemic") with the description of the image. I'd agree that the description is irrelevant to the topic of smallpox - no other image contains such language as to the background of the patient, and the original caption was both more descriptive and concise.WP:NPOV. --Xthorgoldx (talk)05:22, 25 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Because the nativeAmerindian population had no acquired immunity to this new disease, their peoples weredecimated by epidemics.
Decimated literally means reduced by 10%. Is this the correct word when we see a few sentences later:
Case fatality rates during outbreaks in Native American populations were as high as 90%.
Should 'decimated' be changed to some other word or phrase? 'Almost wiped out'? I know this may seem picayune but I think it is important to preserve some language.Tfdavisatsnetnet (talk)04:10, 3 October 2023 (UTC)[reply]
While "decimate" does have that literal archaic meaning, it is has been long replaced with the more general meaning of "to kill a large portion of". Funnily enoughthe Oxford Reference gives this exact example to explain this fact.
Historically, the meaning of the word decimate is ‘kill one in every ten of (a group of people)’. This sense has been more or less totally superseded by the later, more general sense ‘kill or destroy (a large proportion of)’, as inthe virus has decimated the population. Some traditionalists argue that this and other later senses are incorrect, but it is clear that this is now part of standard English.
This is largely speculative, and the sources cited lack substantial evidence to support it. If the mortality rate had been that high before vaccinations, there would have been few surviving infants, given the numerous other diseases that also caused deaths. However, obtaining more accurate numbers is challenging. Hmm..130.226.173.81 (talk)09:38, 28 May 2024 (UTC)[reply]
It says at the top of this article "Smallpox is one of two infectious diseases to have been eradicated, the other being rinderpest (a disease of even-toed ungulates) in 2011."Graham Beards (talk)17:36, 24 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]
level-3 vital article is ratedGA-class on Wikipedia'scontent assessment scale.
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