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"See another banknote"

From time to time several images are multiplexed into a single POTD, such as Template:POTD/2014-06-25 with four. A link is then provided, in this case reading "See another banknote", so people can switch to one of the others.

However, what the link does is simply to purge the page cache. This is annoying because (1) you have to click OK, (2) if you're seeing the image on the home page, it forces the entire complicated page to reload and leaves it scrolled back to the top, (3) since the selection is random, you may actually get the same image again, and (4) there is no way to tell whether you've seen all of them.

I suggest that instead of this approach, the subpages Template:POTD/2014-06-25/1 through Template:POTD/2014-06-25/4 should link to each other in sequence, and the link see another banknote should be changed so that subpage 1 would have:

See another banknote: Previous Next

and analogously for the other subpages. This way once a person chose to see another of the set, they would be taken to a separate page containing only that picture, and they could transition to the other ones in an orderly gallery-style manner. Of course I could make this edit myself for the June 25 set, but as I'm proposing that the change be applied to all such sets in the future, I thought it was better to raise the point here. (Besides, maybe someone can improve on my proposal.) It would be even better if this could be done more automagically through a clever template of some kind.

And on another point, it would also be better if the text that's identical for each subpage of the set could be transcluded from a single source so that any errors in it didn't have to be edited out more than once. --69.158.92.137 (talk) 22:07, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

  • Both suggestions are doable, but for the second one (the transclusion of repeated text) I'd probably wait until next time we do something like this. I know some images (the Taman Sari (Yogyakarta) set, the Exeter Cathedral set, etc.) for which this would make sense.
However, this would mean that only one of the images would actually be on the main page (unless the page were purged), rather than having the main page regularly purged and thus all images having an equal chance. How would photographers/scanners/restorers react? Godot13, since this involves you in a more immediate fashion, could you give some feedback? — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:50, 22 June 2014 (UTC)
I like the idea of next image/previous image and going in order, it allows the viewer to know there is more to see in the set (without back to back repeats of the same image). I'm not sure I completely follow the equal chance at the main page part of what you are saying...--Godot13 (talk) 00:12, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Perhaps its me writing at 6 a.m. AFAIK, the MP is not "purged" regularly when people load it, but when it is updated (or press the purge button). In portals like P:ID, this is true. Assuming this is true for the MP, (again AFAIK) only one note would be visible on the main page over an extended period of time, and the others would only be viewable by clicking on the "next"/"previous" button... which to be honest probably wouldn't draw much attention. Someone better versed in the MP would know if I'm mistaken though. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:16, 23 June 2014 (UTC)
Even if that's true, it doesn't strike me as a big deal. As I see it, if people are interested in one picture then they will want to see the other ones, and if not, they won't care whether they have an equal chance of seeing all of them. --[formerly 69.158.92.137] 70.49.171.225 (talk) 05:58, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
I completely missed the ping or your response Crisco, sorry. I get it, and I do somewhat agree with the IP editor above, while further developing it for larger sets would be nice. Many thanks for all your tireless efforts with POTD.--Godot13 (talk) 06:05, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
  • Here he is, Mr. Stradivarius. Mr. Stradivarius, question for you about the main page: is it purged regularly, or only on updates? Wondering if I should just link "next/previous" directly to the subpages, or if there's a way to avoid that. (Personally I like it being random, but that's just me). — Crisco 1492 (talk) 06:10, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
Only on updates, as far as I'm aware. When someone edits a page transcluded on the main page, that invalidates the main page's cache, and it is generated from scratch for the next person who tries to view it. And as it's the main page, that will happen almost instantly after the edit is made. If no edits are made to any subtemplates, though, then it is only purged when someone clicks a purge link. I can't think of any way to show the images in sequence by purging the page; it would have to be either at random, or just one static image. You would have to do something like link to a subpage and show all the images in sequence there. The new MediaViewer has a nice slideshow feature, but it doesn't look like it can yet be manipulated into showing a slideshow for anything other than (all) the images on the current page. — Mr. Stradivarius ♪ talk ♪ 07:22, 25 June 2014 (UTC)
  • I'd much rather not factor the MediaViewer into this, as many power users (including myself) have turned it off. 69/70, how would you feel if I ask image nominators/creators individually when it comes time to showing multiple images? Say, Godot can have subpages linked from the main page, and I can have images randomized through purging, and X and Y can have whatever they want. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 08:34, 25 June 2014 (UTC)

POTD for September 2

Hello. Would it be appropriate to use Yogapith, Mayapur for the POTD slot on September 2, the birth anniversary of its founder, Bhaktivinoda Thakur, shifting the currently scheduled POTD to another date? Regards, Cinosaur (talk) 19:53, 9 August 2014 (UTC)

POTD from Monarch butterfly article

I received a notice that a photo from the Monarch butterfly article was nominated for POTD. As one of the editors, I need to tell you that I have been in the process of a major clean-up for two months. I have to check out all the references even though I have probably added at least two dozen myself. Someone just attempted to rearrange a picture gallery, in good faith it appears to me, and to change the UNC status with an unreferenced statement. The article is filled with unreferenced statements that I have been trying to track down. I wish there were other editors to help me so that we could get the article into better shape. I encourage the powers-that-be to delay any POTD from the Monarch butterfly article at least until the article is cleaned up.bpage (talk) 22:36, 31 August 2014 (UTC)

Lake Lahontan

In Template:POTD/2014-09-15, why are there arrows pointing from the Sacramento River to Lake Lahontan? The legend says that red arrows are "Direction of flood". But although the Lake Bonneville flood is described, I found no evidence that the Sacramento River ever flooded into Lake Lahontan, or vice versa. Lake Lahontan gradually dried up, but the legend says it was a flood. Art LaPella (talk) 00:23, 10 September 2014 (UTC)

  • Pinging the map creator, Fallschirmjäger. I am not familiar enough with the references to give feedback. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:45, 10 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Apologies for the ambiguous arrows but well spotted. I am certainly no expert on the subject area, the map was created over a year in collaboration with TCO ago so my knowledge is somewhat limited. However I recall those arrows in particular were sourced from here albeit it is not entirely clear. WolfmanSF makes a good point here, so in light of this perhaps the best solution would be to either shrink arrows away from the river or remove entirely? Fallschirmjäger  20:21, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
      • If the map in this article is the only reason for the arrows, then they should be removed. In that map, the arrows are used to label Pyramid Lake and Lake Lahontan. In the Wikipedia map, they don't serve that purpose; all they do is to confuse the map of the flood. So I see no reason to keep the two arrows, shrunk or unshrunk.
The arrow into Lake Missoula has a similar problem. That article describes floods coming out of Lake Missoula, but why is the arrow pointing in? Probably because the other map uses an arrow in the same place to label Lake Missoula; in that case, remove it also. Art LaPella (talk) 21:12, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Removed the ambiguous arrows. Kind regards, Fallschirmjäger  22:32, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
Thank you, but I still see the arrows. Art LaPella (talk) 00:19, 12 September 2014 (UTC)
3 arrows gone, thank you. Art LaPella (talk) 06:07, 12 September 2014 (UTC)

Attracting interest

I enjoyed today's picture and it made me realise that there isn't really an easy way to share Picture of the Day via social media (which could attract more interest to Wikipedia and its pictures). I know Wikipedia has it's own official feed on Facebook for general announcements, but I feel that Picture of the Day would also be very well suited to this format. I know there is reticence to incorporate elements of social media into Wikipedia (and for good reason), but is there any way a separate feed could be set up elsewhere on social media itself rather than adding share links here? SFB 10:58, 11 October 2014 (UTC)

"See another banknote" redux

From a different IP address, I posted this here on June 7:

From time to time several images are multiplexed into a single POTD, such as Template:POTD/2014-06-25 with four. A link is then provided, in this case reading "See another banknote",

so people can switch to one of the others.

However, what the link does is simply to purge the page cache. This is annoying because (1) you have to click OK, (2) if you're seeing the image on the home page, it forces the entire complicated page to reload and leaves it scrolled back to the top, (3) since the selection is random, you may actually get the same image again, and (4) there is no way to tell whether you've seen all of them.
I suggest that instead of this approach, the subpages Template:POTD/2014-06-25/1 through Template:POTD/2014-06-25/4 should link to each other in sequence, and the link see another banknote should be changed so that subpage 1 would have:
See another banknote: Previous Next
and analogously for the other subpages. This way once a person chose to see another of the set, they would be taken to a separate page containing only that picture, and they could transition to the other ones in an orderly gallery-style manner. Of course I could make this edit myself for the June 25 set, but as I'm proposing that the change be applied to all such sets in the future, I thought it was better to raise the point here. (Besides, maybe someone can improve on my proposal.) It would be even better if this could be done more automagically through a clever template of some kind.
And on another point, it would also be better if the text that's identical for each subpage of the set could be transcluded from a single source so that any errors in it didn't have to be edited out more than once.

This produced some discussion that was generally favorable to the ideas, but nothing actually happened and there was at least one suggestion to wait until an item like this came up again. Well, now it has: Template:POTD/2014-11-07 has appeared in the queue. So I repeat that I think something should be done to improve the way this multiplexing works, either along the lines I suggested or, if possible, something better yet.

Oh, by the way, there is one obvious alternative to the Prev/Next approach: subpage 2, for example, could instead have:

See another banknote: 1 3 4

This has the advantage that it's obvious from the links alone how many there are.

-- [formerly 69.158.92.137 and 70.49.171.225] 174.88.135.88 (talk) 05:51, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

#TTTWFTW kickstarter campaign

I thought I would drop a note here as I head into the stretch run of my kickstarter campaign (#TTTWFTW) that can be found here.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 17:47, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Area for Alaska may be problematic

In Template:POTD/2015-01-04, it previously said

The lands purchased covered 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2), and became the modern state of Alaska more than a hundred years later.

I just corrected the erroneous "more than 100" and adjusted the wording to what I think is plainer English:

The purchase involved 586,412 square miles (1,518,800 km2) of land, which became the modern state of Alaska in 1959.

But I have to wonder if the area is correct.

The first thing to note is that Alaska includes considerable coastal territorial waters, and neither the old nor my revised wording implies that these are included. I think that not including them is the right choice, as the extent of coastal claims may have changed since 1867. On the other hand, including inland water would be reasonable. I looked at the Alaska article only to find that it contradicts itself, giving 663,268 square miles (1,717,856 km2) as the land area in the body text but the same number as the total area in the infobox. Even if that is the total area, the infobox says the state is 13.77% water, which would make the land area 571,936 square miles (1,481,307 km2). I have not looked at other sources, but I suggest you do, or else substitute a rounded area. --65.94.50.4 (talk) 00:42, 19 December 2014 (UTC)

May 14

For Template:POTD/2015-05-14, "Trochea" should be trochlea, "Coronid" should be coronoid, and the capitalization is erratic considering that there aren't any proper nouns in the diagram (I suggest capitalizing only the first word of each phrase). Art LaPella (talk) 01:52, 9 May 2015 (UTC)

June 24, 2015

Can someone explain why this picture is POTD level? How is it examplary, inspiring, impressive or even relevant (being from 2012)? -DePiep (talk) 18:38, 28 June 2015 (UTC)

  • Wikipedia's featured pictures are determined by consensus. The discussion which led to said image gaining FP status was here. If you believe that the image does not meet the criteria, you are free to nominate it for delisting at WP:FPC — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:15, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

Birmingham Quran manuscript

@Crisco 1492: Birmingham Quran manuscript is now promoted. Do think that the pic has the chance to appear on the main page. Mhhossein (talk) 12:54, 21 August 2015 (UTC)

  • Yes, it will. Generally there is an 18 month delay, but something like this could (and probably will) be scheduled for date relevance earlier. Eid al-Adha will be in late September, and that would be a decent date to run this. Not because of the verses shown, but because of the Quran's importance in Islam. — Chris Woodrich (talk) 14:13, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
@Crisco 1492: WOW! That's a brilliant idea. Yes, Quran is very important to Muslims. سپاسگزارم. Mhhossein (talk) 18:36, 21 August 2015 (UTC)
Chris Woodrich: Eid al-Adha will be on 23 September and I just meant to remind you that. Btw, Can I have a suggestion for the caption? Mhhossein (talk) 11:49, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

protected version of POTD

Why enwiki creates additionally protected version of POTD with subst? I think Cascading protection is enough for normal POTH page. There is no need to create additionally protected version. --Mavrikant (talk) 16:46, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

Different layout. howcheng {chat} 17:21, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
@Howcheng: Are you sure there is no anything special? We(trwiki) are gonna delete all protected versions and use normal versions on main page. --Mavrikant (talk) 15:13, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
If we could go with one template, we would have done it. We also wanted to make sure that the regular POTD was editable by anyone. howcheng {chat} 15:49, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.


As per my promise a couple years ago, I am bringing this planned POTD for community discussion.

27 January is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and in commemoration of the date I was hoping to run this image from near Nordhausen. The image is stark, shocking, and a firm reminder of the horrors of the Holocaust. However, owing to its disturbing subject matter, before running the image I would like a community consensus established. The planned blurb is as follows:

The Holocaust
During The Holocaust, approximately six million Jews were killed by Adolf Hitler's Nazi regime and its collaborators. Other victims of Nazi crimes included Romanis, ethnic Poles and other Slavs, Soviet POWs, communists, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses and the mentally and physically disabled.

This photograph shows less than half of the bodies of the several hundred inmates who died of starvation or were shot by the Gestapo in the yard of the Boelcke Barracks, a subcamp of the Mittelbau-Dora Nazi concentration camp located in the south-east of the town of Nordhausen. Numbers at the camp, which was used for sick and dying inmates from January 1945, rose from a few hundred to more than six thousand by the end of the war; up to a hundred inmates died every day.Photograph: James E. Myers

This discussion will be open for two weeks; if no consensus is met by that time, it will be extended another week. Once consensus has been reached, or three weeks has passed, I will close the discussion. Please write "support" or "oppose" with your reasoning.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 00:37, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

We are an educational organization. Sometimes, that means pushing our main page readers comfort zone a bit. Now, I'm not saying we should just go "WP:NOTCENSORED!" and throw everything on the main page, but an encyclopedic image documenting the Holocaust on Holocaust Rememberance day, I think is well within our remit. Adam Cuerden (talk) 00:47, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
How is this a "shock picture" it is a perfectly relevant image that displayed what happened during the event in question? I could understand the concern if this was being connected to warfare in genral since there would be several alternatives but I don't see the case for arguing shock value here.--67.68.163.229 (talk) 02:05, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Support. We, the human race, the international community, continue to turn a blind eye, a stiff neck, and cold hard heart, to similar atrocities that happen today. We need to be reminded. ~ ONUnicorn(Talk|Contribs)problem solving 15:37, 29 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Support I believe this is a 100% encyclopaedic picture and blurb not being put on the main page simply to shock viewers but to genuinely direct their attention to a set of decent well written articles. CaptRik (talk) 14:13, 30 December 2015 (UTC)
  • Oppose, strongly. The image deserves to be seen and deserves to be a Featured Picture, but certainly does not belong on the front page. It is in the same category as File:Japanesesuicide.jpg, which is one of the examples in the POTD guidelines of Featured Pictures that will never be Picture of the Day. --76.69.45.64 (talk) 10:55, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
  • Oppose. I think doing something significant for International Holocaust Remembrance Day is a fine idea. I agree that images like this one need to be seen. But I don't think the two necessarily go together; I don't think running this image on Wikipedia's front page is the best way to promote remembrance. The image unquestionably is shocking, and while not gratuitously so, most people's emotional reaction to it will be a negative one. They'll be more likely to want to put the image and any other thoughts of the Holocaust out of their mind, than to take a moment to seriously remember. If the intended audience were people who don't take the Holocaust seriously (or who deny it outright), and if the goal were to jolt them into changing their mind, this would be a fine image for it. But I think the vast majority of us do take the Holocaust seriously, so if the goal is to remind us to keep thinking about how it could have happened and how it must never happen again, I think that something poignant but, yes, without the shock value would be a better choice. —Steve Summit (talk) 13:20, 10 January 2016 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Picture of the day's parameters works incorrectly

At this time my user page is broken. I don't know why, but earlier POTD works fine like "Flag of the day" section at my userpage. Parameters {{POTD/{{#time:Y-m-d}}|image}} and {{POTD/{{#time:Y-m-d}}|title}} generates full Template without only image or only text. ← Alex Great talkrus? 11:53, 19 February 2016 (UTC)

Thank you very much. ← Alex Great talkrus? 05:56, 20 February 2016 (UTC)

Responsive layout

So I've been playing in the sandbox of {{POTD row}} and come up with a responsive design that shows the image and caption side-by-side or stacked, depending on screen size. To see it in action, enable the New Main Page gadget, visit Template:POTD row/testcases and resize away. Would there be any interest in implementing this? -- [[User:Edokter]] {{talk}} 13:46, 19 June 2016 (UTC)

Problem editing blurb for current main page POTD

Two days ago I edited the blurb when it was in the Wikipedia:Main Page queue (reached via Main Page toolbox). In this sentence, I unlinked the all the (common) geographical terms, added a comma after Japan, and deleted "also":

"It is widely distributed in northern and central Europe, and its range extends across Asia and Japan and also into North America."

However, this seems to have had no effect on what appeared on the main page. What is the point of allowing that version to be editable if it makes no difference to what eventually appears on the main page? Edwardx (talk) 13:25, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

The version that appears on the main page is created by copying and pasting the text from the unprotected version. In this instance, that occurred about 12 hours before you performed the edits, so they weren't included until you posted an error report. In the future, you can use the {{edit fully-protected}} template to request that an admin incorporate the changes into the protected version (or post at WP:ERRORS again if the content appears today or tomorrow). Watch for a non-red "Template:POTD_protected" link. —David Levy 14:08, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Requesting specific image for September 8

To go alongside the total main page Star Trek domination that currently looks like will happen for the 50th anniversary of the franchise (looking like a full day of DYK hooks and a FA is currently nominated to appear on the day), I was wondering if we could throw a Star Trek related image on Picture of the Day on September 8. We don't have many FPs in the project (literally 2), and one has already been featured previously. File:The Shuttle Enterprise - GPN-2000-001363.jpg passed FP recently and so would be suitable. Miyagawa (talk) 13:10, 2 August 2016 (UTC)

@Crisco 1492: Ping. Armbrust The Homunculus 13:12, 4 August 2016 (UTC)
At Template:POTD/2016-09-08 — Chris Woodrich (talk) 01:29, 7 August 2016 (UTC)
Awesome, thanks! Miyagawa (talk) 09:01, 7 August 2016 (UTC)

Archiving of random multiple images

Template:POTD/2016-09-05 randomly selects one or other of two selected images (Template:POTD/2016-09-05/1 and Template:POTD/2016-09-05/2) with subtext "This image was chosen at random from a selection of 2. (view another image)" to notify the reader. For archive purposes it would be more convenient for Template:POTD/2016-09-05 to simply show both images, with subtext like "One of these two images was displayed on the Main Page, chosen at random for each user", and a link to Template:POTD protected/2016-09-05 for those who want to see what it actually looked like on the day. It's also liable to confuse some readers when "view another image" shows the same image again on refresh. jnestorius(talk) 09:28, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

Picture of the Day POTD/2016-10-04 - Michael Mullen (b. 1946) is a retired United States Navy admiral who served .....

I always considered Wikipedia a non-partisan site. I think we all thought this. It certainly is what most of us hoped - and expected! It's a real pity to see that this is no longer the case!! LawrieM (talk) 20:53, 5 October 2016 (UTC)

Why don't we have a bot create the protected version?

So I'm filling in for Chris while his computer is being repaired, but it seems that a lot of things haven't changed since I last schedule the POTD. For instance, the protected version still needs to be created manually on a daily basis. It seems like this should be able to be accomplished by bot. Could we engage AnomieBOT for this sort of work (ping Anomie)? howcheng {chat} 22:52, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

AnomieBOT III is the adminbot, unless it's only template-protected in which case AnomieBOT II could handle it. What exactly needs doing? Anomie 01:37, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
@Anomie: POTD on the Main Page is built from templates. There is a regular version and a "protected" version (they have different layouts). For the last number of years, a person has had to manually create the protected version, but I think that this job could be done by a bot. To create the protected version, a person has to go to [1] (replacing the date with the correct value) and replace the first line with {{subst:POTD row. That's it. Ideally, these templates should be created 24 hours in advance of their scheduled date (so that they can appear on WP:Main Page/Tomorrow). I assume this is fairly simple. It's one step more than doing the daily FFD pages. What do you think? Thanks. howcheng {chat} 05:21, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
Ah, I see. I'll have the bot create it at 22:00, about 2 hours before it's supposed to show up on Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow. BRFA filed Anomie 02:43, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

How to figure out the scheduling sequence for adding new PsOTD?

Hi, I'm interested in assisting with POTD by scheduling FPs into the queue. However I'm confused as to how to identify where in the sequence of FPs to start at - I mean, how does anyone know how far back in the archive of FP noms to start using FPs as PsOTD? Cheers! MurielMary (talk) 11:47, 22 February 2017 (UTC)

No more pictures

There are no more Pictures of the Day after January 29, except for one or two per week in February. I'm not saying that we need pictures; I'm just making sure that someone has thought this through. If it isn't just an archive problem or an "oops I forgot", then we need to make sure the Main Page doesn't have a big red "Not Found" where the picture should be. Art LaPella (talk) 05:22, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

  • Hi Art, sorry for the late reply. As How stated in the above thread, my computer was out of commission for the better part of a month, so he took back the reigns for a couple weeks. How and I have different styles; I tend to keep a two-week bumper, while How tends to schedule one or two days before. That's why we had some empty dates when you posted this comment.  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 11:27, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2017-05-07 has unexpected content

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2017-05-07, I found that Template:POTD/2017-05-07 does not begin with {{POTD {{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}}. Please fix it, or create Template:POTD protected/2017-05-07 manually. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Monkey selfie

No idea what forum should be used for this, but I would like to protest in the strongest possible terms against the use of a monkey selfie as PotD on WP. (June 1st)he

This is a copyrighted image, by the human photographer, and WP should not be hosting it, let alone advertising the fact as PotD. Doing so further discredits WP as not observing photographer's copyrights. Certainly to blatantly use it in such a way is deliberately provocative. Andy Dingley (talk) 14:31, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but US courts have disagreed with that claim. There is no question that the work is in the public domain in the US. However, I agree that using it as POTD may be in poor taste. We certainly don't need to be adding insult to injury. howcheng {chat} 17:31, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
US courts had, in relation to a different and earlier image, already given the opinion that animals can't create a copyrightable artwork or hold such copyright. But that's not something that anyone (other than PETA, who get everything wrong) is claiming here anyway.
Nor are US courts arbiters of world copyright: this is a photo taken by a UK photographer, in Indonesia.
Wikipedia's invented view (which hasn't been anywhere near a court) is that this photograph is the work of the monkey, but the monkey can't hold copyright. That's against the US court view (which says that monkeys can't create) and also against European law which holds that the human photographer was the artist responsible, thus holds the copyright. More to the point though, Wikipedia's continual gloating over repeated, prominent use of this image gives a very poor portrayal of Wikipedia, as a copyright pirate that delights in finding opportunities to exploit photographers. That is a long-term harmful viewpoint for WP and WMF to take. PotD should not be encouraging this. Andy Dingley (talk) 22:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
Arguing about the copyright status of this photo at this point is moot and beyond the scope of this page. Although I agree with you that we don't need to be poking the bear, I will defer to the POTD scheduler, User:Crisco 1492, whether or not we want to feature it as POTD. howcheng {chat} 17:09, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
  • Andy, Wikipedia's view is that the monkey took the photograph, as in "pressed the button that opened the shutter and caused the image to be captured". That is far from identifying the monkey as the "creator" under US copyright law. There is the physical act of taking a picture, nothing more.
Regarding your argument that "US courts [are not] arbiters of world copyright", Wikipedia, with its servers being located in Virginia and its headquarters in California, is bound solely by US copyright law. Even if the image were recognized as copyrighted outside of the United States (a doubtful claim), as stated at Wikipedia:Non-U.S. copyrights, Wikipedia "accepts content that is free in the United States even if it may be under copyright in some other countries"
If the sole claim against using the image is copyright, it is groundless in both US copyright law and in Wikipedia policy. As Howard has said, "Arguing about the copyright status of this photo at this point is moot".  — Chris Woodrich (talk) 04:03, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2017-06-10 has unexpected content

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2017-06-10, I found that Template:POTD/2017-06-10 does not begin with {{POTD {{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}}. Please fix it, or create Template:POTD protected/2017-06-10 manually. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

@Crisco 1492: Looks like the random image thing is confusing the bot again. Anomie 00:16, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2017-07-01 has unexpected content

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2017-07-01, I found that Template:POTD/2017-07-01 does not begin with {{POTD {{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}}. Please fix it, or create Template:POTD protected/2017-07-01 manually. When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:01, 29 June 2017 (UTC)

Not knowing what to do about this, and in Chris's absence, I've swapped in tomorrow's single image. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:54, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
@Crisco 1492: It seems this comes up once or twice a month. Is there a procedure simple enough for a bot to follow to correctly handle these? e.g. "if Template:POTD/<DATE> begins with {{POTD/<DATE>/{{#invoke:random|number|<N>}}|{{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}}}} then each Template:POTD/<DATE>/<I> from 1 to N should be like a normal POTD page. Create Template:POTD protected/<DATE>/<I> like normal, and make Template:POTD protected/<DATE> by changing the beginning bit accordingly."? Anomie 11:27, 1 July 2017 (UTC)
  • Anomie, the procedure is like this:
  1. Create POTD protected subpage (POTD protected/1 etc.)
  2. Copy template from POTD subpage (POTD/1 etc.) and subst like normal using POTD row. Save
  3. Manually insert links to previous POTDs and remove everything after the noinclude tag.
  4. Repeat for however many supages there are
  5. Create the randomizer page at POTD protected, changing "POTD" to "POTD protected".

Template:POTD/2017-08-01

I have some comments for Template:POTD/2017-08-01. I don't dare to do the changes myself because I fear they could be controversial:

  • The picture itself is of a coat of arms and the blurb then goes on to describe the modern seal which is related to the coat of arms, but not identical to it. So, some things in the blurb are not visible in the picture, e.g. the 'ribbon of red, white and blue with the words, "Union and Constitution"' and the "three snow-capped mountains". This had me confused.
  • The motto is written on the scroll, but the motto and the scroll are mentioned in different places in the blurb, as if they were not connected. (In the article, the position of the scroll in the seal is given incorrectly, which I have corrected. I think the phrasing here is better, but still confusing.)

So, I would suggest the following:

The Colorado coat of arms in 1876, as illustrated by Henry Mitchell in State Arms of the Union. The modern Seal of Colorado, an adaptation of the Territorial Seal adopted by the First Territorial Assembly in 1861, and similar to the coat of arms, was adopted a year after this illustration was published. The coat of arms includes the following devices: the Eye of Providence or 'All Seeing Eye' within a triangle, with golden rays radiating; the Roman fasces, a bundle of birch or elm rods with a battle ax bound together with a ribbon; the heraldic shield bearing a red sky behind a mountain and the pick and sledge hammer, crossed on a golden ground. Below the shield, on a scroll, is the motto, "Nil Sine Numine", meaning "Nothing without providence".

Spike (talk) 21:40, 26 July 2017 (UTC)

Pinging @Crisco 1492: as the original writer of the blurb. Spike (talk) 20:37, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

August 10

For August 10, the picture of the day is Ursa Major, and the featured article is Lynx (constellation). Both are constellations of stars. Is that something we avoid? Art LaPella (talk) 05:02, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

Problem with POTD on April 22nd

The POTD for April 24 can be seen to be poor quality in comparison to, for example, this external version. Probably because the restoration was done without access to the full original image (it was restored from a damaged copy), the right hand edge is not a faithful reproduction -- see the background lettering in the linked external file. The colours are also much better in the external file. I'm not criticizing the work Adam did, but I think it would be wrong for us to claim this is an outstanding picture when much better versions of it exist on the web. I think a different picture should be run on that day. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 18:09, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

I've had to make wikilink repairs like this one every day lately. Art LaPella (talk) 01:43, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

A couple of POTD contains File:Deleted photo.png

These POTD templates is hosting


--Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 15:56, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

@Crisco 1492: there has been a report by The Rambling Man made at his main-page error page (User:The_Rambling_Man/ERRORS), that large parts of the blurb for tomorrow's TFP, the Indonesian Rupiah, are not cited (or in some cases even mentioned) in the article itself. Assuming there isn't time for this to be fixed today, please can we pull this one and replace it with another picture so that the issue can be resolved? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 14:36, 16 August 2018 (UTC)

Well, since most of the day has passed with the issue remaining unresolved, and the switchover is only just over an hour away, I have had to swap it out. I have swapped the POTD for 2018-08-18 with that of 2018-08-17 (and all its subcomponents). Large parts of the blurb seem to be not related to anything contained in the article, including the 1943 dates and the Japanese occupation and so on. Hopefully the next 24 hours will allow some unification of the blurb with verifiable content in the article and this can go up on Saturday. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:44, 16 August 2018 (UTC)
  • Crisco 1492 not entirely my fault I picked up on the fact that every other POTD blurb contains unverifiable material (and yes, that really means you shouldn't have to read the linked articles, you should only need to read the target article like every single other part of the main page). Sorry it's affected you so badly, no-one should feel they need to retire when all has been done is to provide the reader with what they deserve. But good luck with all your new spare time, I'm sure it's better spent on more important things than this (as I think you said you have a young child)! The Rambling Man (talk) 20:52, 18 August 2018 (UTC)

Verifiable blurbs

There is a suggestion at Wikipedia_talk:Featured_picture_criteria#Verifiable_blurbs that could use input. Thanks. Kees08 (Talk) 23:20, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

POTD volunteers needed

Please see Wikipedia talk:Featured pictures#Picture of the day volunteers needed. Thanks, Swarm 07:08, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

  • I get the impression that Amakuru has stepped up to look after this and so props to him if that's the case. I'd like to help out too as good pictures are important for our pages, being worth a thousand words or more. I've commented on POTD at WP:ERRORS before but I'm not sure of the full process. If an extra pair of hands or eyes is needed for reviewing or other chores, please detail what's to be done. Andrew D. (talk)
  • @Andrew Davidson: sorry, I never got around to replying to your message here. If you're still interested in helping out with POTD, that would be great. As you say I've been mostly taking care of it since the last coordinator left. The tasks are as follows:
    1. Schedule the pictures. This generally means working through them in the order they were promoted to FP, but also using discretion to avoid too many similar images appearing in a row, and also to schedule some on anniversaries relevant to that picture.
    2. Fill in the template. This is done by clicking the "Create" link for a particular day from the month's schedule page, e.g. Wikipedia:Picture of the day/October 2018.
    3. Write the blurb. This is really the hardest part, because in my opinion the text in the blurb, which appears on the main page, should all be verifiable. The majority of target articles do not contain enough cited material to construct a viable blurb, which means the POTD coordinator has to go off and find references for any blurbworthy passages in the article, or add new cited text to the article for other blurbworthy points that weren't already covered. See [2] and [3] for example, where I've done this. Note that this requirement for verifiable blurbs isn't officially mentioned in the instructions for preparing a POTD, but it seems like common sense that main page material should be verified, and it is an absolute requirement in other main page areas such as ITN and OTD. (This issue was what led in part to the dispute with the previous POTD coordinator, and User:The Rambling Man was highlighting uncited and possibly inaccurate material in the blurbs on a regular basis.
    If you're interested in helping out with any or all of the above, or if you have any other questions, please let me know.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:37, 22 September 2018 (UTC)

Indeed, but have we given up the practice of putting a notification on the talk page of an article using the {{POTD}} template when an image from what article is elected as POTD? 213.205.198.160 (talk) 00:04, 10 September 2018 (UTC)

Centered text

Sometimes POTD text is left justified, and sometimes it's centered text. Did anyone discuss or decide that, or did it just happen when nobody was looking? Art LaPella (talk) 05:27, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

@Art LaPella: it appears that the bot User:AnomieBOT, which creates the main page protected versions of the POTD templates, is making this decision. It's not an active editor decision day to day. I can look into it in more detail later, but I assume it's based on the width of the picture, and whether the blurb is intended to appear to the right of, or underneath, the picture itself. @Anomie: does that sound right? Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 06:30, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
AnomieBOT does not make any decision, it just substs the non-protected version. The decision seems to be made by Template:POTD row based on whether the |size= (or |rowsize=) parameter is 400 or more. Anomie 11:14, 28 September 2018 (UTC)
My "centered text" link above says that it is "considered less readable ..." Art LaPella (talk) 13:43, 28 September 2018 (UTC)

Commons

I just realized that the Wikipedia picture of the day and the Wikimedia Commons picture of the day are two different things. It's confusing and redundant. Why is it this way? Benjamin (talk) 12:18, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is mainly focused on encyclopedic value, Commons focuses on artistic value and quality more --Trougnouf (talk) 00:45, 8 January 2019 (UTC)

[Fixed] POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-02-09 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-02-09, I found that Template:POTD/2019-02-09 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

I've moved one in from another day to cover this. Will try to fill a few new ones out for coming days tomorrow. Thanks.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:41, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

Request for May 10, 2019

I realize that we are a ways out from this yet, however I wanted to broach the possibility of an IAR request for May 10 to use File:East and West Shaking hands at the laying of last rail Union Pacific Railroad - Restoration.jpg as May 10, 2019, will be the 150th anniversary of the image and the event it depicts: the completion of the First Transcontinental Railroad in the United States. For the record I do note that the previously featured version was featured on the mainpage at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/March 18, 2006, but with a new image and a century-and-a-half anniversary I thought I'd make a request to see if we could put it out again. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:10, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

@TomStar81: that's absolutely fine by me. If nobody comes up with any other objections then I will definitely schedule that one in for the date you mention. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 22:44, 7 February 2019 (UTC)

[Fixed] POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-03-10 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-03-10, I found that Template:POTD/2019-03-10 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Thanks. I have moved a template into position. I need to get a bit more of a buffer going for future POTDs!  — Amakuru (talk) 23:47, 8 March 2019 (UTC)

Unused Templates

Hello all. There is a group of us that has taken on the task of cleaning up unused templates. There are hundreds of POTD templates that are unused ({{POTD caption/2007-01-01}}, {{POTD caption/2007-01-02}} etc. etc.). Is there any reason that these need to be kept? Before we do a big bulk TFD, I want to get a sense from this project if there is a reason to keep these templates. Thanks in advance! (Please {{ping|zackmann08}} in your response). --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 19:16, 27 February 2019 (UTC)

@Zackmann08: Those two were test templates. They can be deleted. howcheng {chat} 23:57, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
@Howcheng: There are over a thousand of them... See User:Zackmann08/unused_templates. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 23:59, 27 February 2019 (UTC)
Here is the full list of all 4,238 unused POTD templates. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:02, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
@Zackmann08: The ones that should be kept are those that follow these patterns:
  • POTD/[date]/# – these are from FP sets and are linked to in the POTD caption
  • POTD protected/[date] – these were transcluded on the main page on the date in question and are linked to from the corresponding POTD/[date] pages.
  • POTD protected/[date]/# – FP sets again
  • Also, {{POTD notice}} is in use; it's subst'ed to notify FP creators/nominators of an upcoming POTD appearance.
Everything else can go. BTW, the "transclusions" link on your list has an extra colon after the template name. Thanks. howcheng {chat} 00:23, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
@Howcheng: help me understand, why do the protected versions need to be saved? For example {{POTD protected/2018-01-02}} and {{POTD/2018-01-02}} are basically the same. Why do we need to keep these around if they aren't used anymore? --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 00:26, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
@Zackmann08: I suppose they don't need to be kept anymore, but each POTD template will have a red link to its protected version see today's), so we'll need a bot or something to remove all of those. For the long term, maybe have the same bot do this on a daily basis for POTD templates >1 month old? Flag the protected version for speedy deletion under the housekeeping one (G6? I don't remember) and remove the link. Secondly, if look at Wikipedia:Picture of the day/March 2019, you can see that where there is no protected version, the user is encouraged to create one (this can be easily solved, though, by adding a #if clause to Template:POTD/Day). Amakuru, do you have any thoughts on this? howcheng {chat} 03:40, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
I can have User:AnomieBOT III be that bot, assuming there's consensus. As an adminbot it can do the deletion directly instead of having to flag it for a human. Anomie 12:58, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
@Anomie: that would be fantastic... Would certainly save us a ton of time. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 17:08, 28 February 2019 (UTC)
@Zackmann08 and Howcheng: Let me know when you think WP:SILENCE is satisfied (and Template:POTD/Day is updated) and I'll file the BRFA. Anomie 00:28, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
@Zackmann08 and Anomie: Template:POTD/Day has been updated to hide the links to the protected versions after 30 days. [4] howcheng {chat} 04:29, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
@Anomie: I think it is safe to start deleting the old OLD versions. The query I've been using is to look at unused templates that were created prior to Jan 1st, 2018. --Zackmann (Talk to me/What I been doing) 18:57, 2 March 2019 (UTC)
BRFA filed Anomie 03:42, 9 March 2019 (UTC)
@Zackmann08 and Howcheng: At the BRFA, xaosflux apparently didn't think this discussion was sufficient and wanted a TFD. So please comment at Wikipedia:Templates for discussion/Log/2019 March 9#Old Template:POTD_protected/YYYY-MM-DD templates. Anomie 20:18, 9 March 2019 (UTC)

[Fixed] POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-03-18 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-03-18, I found that Template:POTD/2019-03-18 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

 Fixed  — Amakuru (talk) 22:59, 16 March 2019 (UTC)

"Recently featured" on the "row" display method

I just fixed Template:POTD row so something like {{POTD/2018-03-11|row}} will work:

Griffon vulture

The griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus) is a Old World vulture in the bird of prey family Accipitridae. Specimens average 93–122 cm (37–48 in) long, with a 2.3–2.8 m (7.5–9.2 ft) wingspan. Like other vultures, the griffon vulture is a scavenger, feeding mostly from carcasses of dead animals which it finds by soaring over open areas.

Photograph: Pierre Dalous

Recently featured:

But to make the "Recently featured" list to show what was featured (matching POTD_protected) rather than what is featured now, we'd need to add |date= to all the POTD templates (like this). I could have AnomieBOT do that for all the existing pages, if there's consensus here, and then we'd have to add it to Template:POTDstart too for the future.

Or the other option would be to just let it show the current "Recently featured" rather than the ones from the relevant date:

Pretty Nose

Pretty Nose (c. 1851 – after 1952) was an Arapaho woman, and according to her grandson, a war chief who participated in the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. This 1879 collotype was taken at Fort Keogh, Montana, and shows Pretty Nose wearing a cloth dress with woven cloth belt and buffalo robe, as well as earrings, bracelet, rings and necklace.

Photograph: Laton Alton Huffman

Anomie 21:07, 11 March 2019 (UTC)

It seems disproportionate to me to make ~4000 bot edits to support a template display used on only thirteen pages, none of which are very highly-watched. {{3x|p}}ery (talk) 23:06, 11 March 2019 (UTC)
Agreed. I think that if changes are going to be made to this bot's behaviour, then a more useful change would be to post something on the talk page of the linked article and maybe the user talk of any relevant editors, to notify that the particular work appeared/is appearing on the main page. TFA, DYK and ITN already do something along this lines but it's too much work for editors to do manually.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:57, 16 March 2019 (UTC)
Ok, no consensus for these edits. Thanks for commenting. Anomie 21:56, 17 March 2019 (UTC)

Problems raised with today's PotD at main-page errors

The problems don't seem readily fixable by editing the blurb and pulling might be required. And, in an afterthought, it would be useful to be able to ping the PotD co-ordinator(s), but unless I'm missing something they don't currently seem to be identified here? Espresso Addict (talk) 05:29, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I believe the coordinator these days is User:Amakuru. The issues are here. Hut 8.5 06:46, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Start credits line with "Credits:"

I suggest prefixing the credits line with "Credits:", to make it clear what the line's intent is. When the only entry on the line is something like "Map:Unknown", it is not at all clear what that is supposed to mean, i.e., that no one can be credited for creating the map depicted. Example of proposed format:
Credits: Henry Mitchell (illustration), Andrew Shiva (restoration)
Jmar67 (talk) 21:56, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I see the word "credit" appearing more often. That is an improvement. Please consider my suggestion above. Thanks. Jmar67 (talk) 04:34, 30 April 2019 (UTC)

Editnotice

Would it be a good idea to have a group Wikipedia:Editnotice for subpages of Template:POTD protected? Like this:


When editing this, please make the same edit to the unprotected version. A link to the unprotected version of this protected template is at the bottom of this template.

The unprotected version is used for non-administrators to suggest edits. Administrators can then copy the unprotected version to the protected version. So if an unrelated edit is made to the unprotected version after you edit the protected version, and the unprotected version is then copied to the protected version, your edit will be lost unless it is made in both places.


As you probably know, I have often suggested that the problem be solved by having only one version. Non-administrators normally use WP:ERRORS, not the unprotected version. But maybe there is a consensus for Plan B. Art LaPella (talk) 04:10, 24 May 2019 (UTC)

RfC: Apollo 11 anniversary and the Main Page

Please comment on the discussion at WT:TFA about the Main Page for 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 03:34, 8 June 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-06-22 does not exist - Fixed

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-06-22, I found that Template:POTD/2019-06-22 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 20 June 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Amakuru. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 01:58, 21 June 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-06-27 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-06-27, I found that Template:POTD/2019-06-27 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 25 June 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-07-02 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-07-02, I found that Template:POTD/2019-07-02 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 30 June 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-07-10 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-07-10, I found that Template:POTD/2019-07-10 does not exist. Please create it! When you have fixed this issue, please change the section title (e.g. append " - Fixed") or remove this section completely. I will repost the notice if the page is still broken or is re-broken. If you have any questions or comments that my operator should see, please post a notice to User talk:AnomieBOT. Thanks! AnomieBOT 22:00, 8 July 2019 (UTC)