Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
Let me give a little background. L R (Randy30I is a collector of very old photographs, from the 1840s-1860s I believe he told me. He is interested in contributing scans from his collection to wikipedia, and he is also interested in seeking out information about one particular photo from his collection.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Queen0e.jpg
He believes this may be a photo of a visiting head of state (queen or princess?). I see that someone has already responded on the image: page with an opinion that this is just a costume ball or "Queen for a day" shot. I have no opinion.
You sound almost apologetic for the appearance of this. ;-)
Wikipedians are generally highly inteligent and extremely curious. Some with whom I have serious differences in some areas I can find to be brilliant in other areas. This can make them well suited to answer, or at least try to answer, some of these questions. None of us needs feel under any obligation to answer. We probably need some sense of intrigue before we even try.
With Randy my impression is that he makes an effort to work on his questions, and probably needs other perspectives on the subject. The tone of the request is far different from that of some highschool kid that's too damn lazy to his research on a term paper. If Wikipedia can be seen as a place where the members of the community do tackle these difficult questions it can only enhance its credibility.
Ec