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Archive 5Archive 6Archive 7Archive 8Archive 9Archive 10Archive 11

Moving discussion from main-page errors

I notice that the picture shows a Scottish example of a harbour or common seal. It should probably therefore use the UK spelling, or for internationalism, "common seal" is a synonym. If done, also gray-->grey. Also, "Argyll" is a historical entity that hasn't existed since 1975. The administrative area is Argyll and Bute, or just Scotland would not be ambiguous. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:56, 4 July 2019 (UTC)

If no one objects I will do this myself shortly. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:23, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
Not necessarily objecting, but to present an alternative view, the purpose of FPs is not just to show pretty picture, but to illustrate an encyclopedic topic, and our article on that topic. In this case, the article in question is written in US English and convention typically dictates that we follow the styling and ENGVAR of the linked article. The fact that the seal in question speaks with a Scottish accent is somewhat incidental to this - it is depicted in order to illustrate the topic in general. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 22:04, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for responding, Amakuru. I think we have a subtle but fundamental difference in opinion here, which is why I brought it to Errors rather than just changing it. I consider the PotD to be a pretty picture with a legend. Correct if I'm wrong, but you appear to consider PotD to be a TfA-like blurb, associated with a pretty picture. I note that the FP itself uses "Common seal (Phoca vitulina)", which might be a compromise? (As far as I'm aware, in UK usage common seal is more prevalent than harbour seal for this species.) Just to muddy the waters further, there are also several subspecies of common seal discussed with different geographic ranges. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:49, 4 July 2019 (UTC)
As the seal is in the UK, we should be using Br.Eng spelling - harbour seal. Mjroots (talk) 04:27, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
My concern on looking at the blurb is that the first sentence is singular and the second sentence uses the pronoun "they". I suggest that you put "harbor seals" in the second sentence and "they" in the third. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 04:57, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
As there was one vote in favour, and none outright against, I've edited it to avoid Scotland getting up to seals with American accents. Espresso Addict (talk) 05:18, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Espresso Addict This probably isn't the venue for this, but I am indeed surprised by your opinion that the POTD is a "pretty picture with a legend". From WP:FP? criterion 5, the picture must "help readers to understand an article". That is pretty much the only reason why Wikipedia has its own FP process, separate from the Commons Featured Picture process (which is much more about pretty pictures with legends, preferably in multiple languages). And I think WP:5P1 ("Wikipedia is an encyclopedia") and WP:NOTIMAGE {"Wikipedia articles are not merely collections of [...] Photographs or media files") are also important here. Much as it goes against my personal preference, being a Brit, I think your change was incorrect and I wouldn't have done it myself. The blurb's ENGVAR should match the article (which could also mean switching the article, if you think it has stronger WP:TIES to Scotland than elsewhere) and the location of the image itself is secondary to that. POTD would be the only section of the main page to allow bolded article links of different ENGVAR if your proposition is correct. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 06:48, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
"Pretty picture" was a quotation of your comment! I was trying to be light-hearted. Obviously I failed, or it was inappropriate. Be assured I take the encyclopedic value of the image very seriously.
As to which variety of English the image blurb/legend should take, there are obviously several views here, even though I think we are all Brits. I don't think this is the venue to debate them, though I would welcome a suggestion of a venue where we could continue these discussions. Espresso Addict (talk) 07:11, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
WT:POTD would be satisfactory. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 07:34, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure, I agree. Either there or WT:FP would be good venues. And @Espresso Addict:, apologies if I seemed rude, and not sufficiently light-hearted. That was not the intention, just giving my angle on the matter. To show I can also do lighthearted, here is a pretty picture of a kitten to brighten your morning. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 07:49, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
I believe ENGVAR is clear that an "international" version is preferred where practical, which (by your own suggestion) it was here. No offence intended, but the location of this one specimen seems a rather silly pretence to Anglicanize the blurb. GreatCaesarsGhost 11:42, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
  • It is unwise to have an extensive and detailed blurb for such a picture without detailed review and fact-checking. For example, the blurb currently states "An adult can attain a ... a mass of 132 kg". This figure is taken from the lead of the harbor seal but notice that the figure does not appear in the body of that article, where there's a different figure of 168 kg. If one consults an external source such as The Natural History of Canadian Mammals we see that it gives an even larger figure of 170 kg. So, while the picture seems fine, the blurb should be cut down so that it is just a brief, uncontroversial caption. Andrew D. (talk) 12:06, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
    @Ravenpuff: I think you wrote the blurb for this one... did you check the figure in the cited text? Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 13:06, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
    I did write this one, but I don't think I checked all of the details of the blurb. After going through some other sources, I think 170 kg is possibly a more reasonable figure. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 13:51, 5 July 2019 (UTC)
I think the issue of detailed fact-checking is something that needs to be brought up in the discussion I've suggested. In my experience, except for featured articles, leads are often the least reliable part of an article, as good-faith but inexperienced editors often add to them because they don't know where to put the information in the body, while experienced editors sometimes forget to check the lead after correcting the body. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:39, 5 July 2019 (UTC)

Further discussion

I think there are several topics that would merit a broader discussion than the ad hoc debates that occur sporadically on errors, including:

  • Length of blurb
  • Focus of blurb (should it be on the image or the linked article)
  • Source of variant of English (article, subject, other)
  • Fact checking
  • Copy editing
  • Possible promotion of companies in blurbs
  • Roles of the two different PotD templates (why is there an unprotected version?)

Pinging participants in this discussion & an earlier one: @Amakuru, Andrew Davidson, Mjroots, Cwmhiraeth, GreatCaesarsGhost, Ravenpuff, and Coffeeandcrumbs: Espresso Addict (talk) 03:37, 6 July 2019 (UTC)

Ok, let's try to kickstart some discussion... It might be worth stating for the record that I've been editing the main page sections on & off (I tend to edit in bursts) for more years than I care to recall. When Chris was PotD director, I frequently edited the caption and he rarely if ever complained, and had even been known to thank me. I came back from hibernation to find that Chris had retired and numerous changes had (to my eyes) occurred in the PotD blurb under Amakuru's leadership. That's fine, of course, but I think in trying to tackle some of the PotD issues that appear to have been a factor in Chris's decision to retire, some other issues have crept in.
The unique problem with this main-page section seems to be that the articles linked are in no way selected for quality; it is the image that's featured, not the articles. While DYK & ITN both feature start-class articles, they are (or at least should be) scrutinised for quality by multiple editors before they are bold-linked on the main page. It's also easier to pull single un-illustrated items in a list format, if problems are detected. PotD has also traditionally been managed by a single admin editor, which places an impossible burden on that editor if they are expected to improve the target articles themselves.
Correct me if I'm wrong, Amakuru, but it seems as if your approach, where the obvious target is substandard, is to select tangentially connected articles of higher quality? This led to the odd coupling of a picture of a mail coach c. 1825 with a caption largely about the modern Royal Mail.[1] When I first saw that I genuinely thought it was an error. It also felt promotional. I tried raising my concerns at Errors, but as I recall got no response.
Leafing forward, then you've got things like the squirrel with the rather long blurb (compare say, [2] from July 2018); did anyone fact-check all those numbers? One reason for preferring the shorter caption style is that there's an awful lot less to check.
And then Comme des Garçons,[3] where I still hold that the final sentence "The company has boutique stores across the world, exhibits its main collections annually at the Paris Fashion Week, and also runs a line of perfumes." is excruciatingly promotional in the context of a photograph of a museum exhibition of pieces of clothing. I genuinely wanted to know why those particular garments were in an exhibition, not that I can buy perfume from the same company that produced them. Articles where that kind of language predominates are, in my experience, frequently tagged as G11 speedies. If someone put something similar up on DYK, there'd be a howl of protest over DYK being used for promotion, possibly leading to the hook being pulled. Again I found little/no serious discussion when I raised the issue at Errors.
And finally the above Scottish seal with the American accent. In hindsight I can see that perhaps unilaterally changing the language to my own flavo(u)r wasn't the wisest action to take, but I deliberately raised this at Errors in the UK morning, so as to give plenty of time to debate and let someone else judge consensus, only to be dismissed late in the following evening, leaving me alone with the caption between UTC midnight and Amakuru coming back on line. Which raises another point: the PotD goes live at 1am UK time (which I believe is Amakuru's time zone). If it's unacceptable for me to act unilaterally on PotD between it going live and everyone else waking up then who is the appropriate contact? Chris could usually be relied upon to be online during that time frame.
The other issue, which I see on leafing through the talk archives has also been raised recently by Art LaPella, is why on earth do we have two parallel picture templates? It just seems to be make work trying to keep them in sync. Is there some reason why the main-page protected version can't be used throughout? If someone corrects an error in the unprotected version, they still have to report the problem at Errors to get it fixed on the main page.
I'm genuinely interested in other viewpoints on all these issues, and apologies for the wall of text. Espresso Addict (talk) 04:31, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
I have been pinged before when featured pics of bird species with stubby articles have been mainpaged and have obliged by expanding if possible. Personally I have no problem with linking stubs from the mainpage if it inspires any reader to start editing its a Good Thing. So maybe the key is to nag as far in advance as possible but always link to the logical target. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 05:43, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
That sounds like a good idea, Casliber. I see that images are queued up till 29 July, with a few gaps; perhaps the upcoming ones could be advertised to relevant wikiprojects/interested editors as a matter of course? Especially eg 26th, where the obvious target appears to have been bypassed. Espresso Addict (talk) 06:39, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
@Ravenpuff: And while I'm here, why "illuminated in the evening sunlight" in tomorrow's? We're not a tourist agency. Why do we even need the whole "This photograph..." bit unless the castle burned down in 2017? Espresso Addict (talk) 06:47, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Morning Espresso Addict and thanks for getting this conversation rolling. If it's OK I'll give a few assorted thoughts here, in no particular order, some of which are replies to your points above, some of which are not.
    1. First and foremost, the thing I think more important than any other aspect of this is that the blurb posted on the main page needs to be verified and accurate. Now it's long been accepted that the POTD linked articles are of a lesser standard than the other five sections of the main page. That's regrettable, and we did have a discussion last year about the possibility of requiring FP nominators at the time of improvement to improve the linked article up to ITN/DYK standards of referencing and length, but it failed to gain consensus. So that's the status quo. However, there has never been any consensus that blurbs may be unreferenced and it is rarely sufficient to copy material directly from the article, unless everything copied is cited. I'm pretty sure that Crisco honoured this principle in general, because looking back on his archived POTDs I see they are of varying length, which shorter blurbs reflecting less verifiable material. Towards the end of this tenure, however, for some reason there was more and more uncited material appearing in the blurbs, and the issue was starting to appear more frequently in TRM's error reports. In essence that is what led to the Crisco's resignation, and I won't bore you with the details of that - it's all there in the archives!
    2. I've been running POTD for almost a year now, and by-and-large there haven't been any issues. Indeed, I got a lovely message from Swarm after doing it for a couple of months. Perhaps my style is slightly different from Crisco's, I find it hard to judge that accurately, and perhaps you can clarify with more detail on what you mean with regard to that. But the ship has stayed afloat, and I've managed to keep things going through working hard to patch up passages in articles where necessarily. Bear in mind I didn't particularly ask for this job, or seek to muscle Crisco out of the way, they left and I just took over, that's about it. I've put a lot of work into it too, as noted - the referencing of daily articles does take time.
    3. Having run POTD almost as a sole ship (but with lots of helpful post-writing copyediting from the likes of Edwardx and others), in the last couple of months there seem to be a lot more people getting involved, including Ravenpuff and Coffeeandcrumbs. That's obviously a good thing, the more hands the merrier, but unfortunately the verifiability rule at the top has somewhat fallen by the wayside a bit. I think all of us need to be more on top of this, and if a linked article doesn't have enough citing to produce any blurb, then we should just do a very short one or postpone the POTD for a later date.
    4. Regarding the addition of "This picture is..." at the bottom of blurbs, that's something Ravenpuff has introduced recently too. For the most part, except for paintings and suchlike, where the picture itself is obviously notable, I wouldn't do that, but I've also been keen not to tread on people's toes, as I'm aware I'm just one voice amongst many.
    5. On reports to errors, I apologise for not noticing the ENGVAR thing until the next day, but I dispute that it was something you had to step in and fix unilaterally. Obvious and glaring errors, and problems with citing, of course should be fixed immediately. But subjective aspects like "this is too promotional" (something which many people have said was not the case for Comme des Garçons), and "this should be written in Scottish English" are not errors but content decisions, and not something that need urgent fixing.
    6. On Royal Mail, I did kind of agree with you that the subject was slightly off, but Royal Mail was the chosen bolded link for the FP itself, so in a sense that's not a decision we made at POTD, but one that was already made earlier. In the vast majority of cases the bold article has matched the most obvious topic for the subject.
    7. Anyway, sorry if this is a bit rambling. I'm not sure what concrete next-steps you want to see come out of this? I'm also not sure if you're unhappy with me or not. I'm trying my best to do the right thing here. Casliber's offer to help with fleshing out and citing substandard articles is a very helpful one, and that would certainly be appreciated. Perhaps getting the schedule up further in advance would be helpful in this, so that we can work through things systematically a month or more ahead. I'll make an effort to be more on top of monitoring the blurbs for verifiability too, since that's the aspect that I feel most strongly about. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 10:14, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict: I wrote the recent eastern gray squirrel, Wendell Phillips, and Frida Kahlo blurbs, all three of which you will notice went by without complaint. I was careful to adopt sentences with a source attached and for claims that were likely to be challenged made sure to check the sources as well.
I was not aware the length was an issue and will write shorter blurbs in the future. However, blurbs that are too short are also an issue as a LOT of empty space is left around the blurb making the Main Page ugly. I recommend we keep blurbs to no less than 500 character and no more than 750.
Having said that, now that we have several people interested in this project. I recommend we adopt the same model used at TFA to select POTD and write & fact-check the blurb. What we need is a process of selection and curation. Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Archive currently transcludes Wikipedia:Picture of the day/{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}. I guess that is useful but what we really need is a Wikipedia:Picture of the day/requests where we can discuss and copyedit the blurbs as we go in the same way TFA does at Wikipedia:Today's featured article/requests. This will lift the burden off Amakuru and allow them to fulfill the roll of a true coordinator, closing discussion and promoting blurbs as consensus builds. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 12:37, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict: Sorry for my late reply; I've been busier than usual today and haven't gotten around to checking Wikipedia until now.
I generally structure POTD blurbs in two main parts, the first being an encyclopedic summary of the associated article (normally taking up approximately three-quarters of the blurb) and the second being a brief explanation of what the picture illustrates. I definitely agree that we need to work on the verifiability of the article in question; I'll be sure to work more on that.
Regarding the latter part ("This picture..." etc.), I generally feel that we should at least provide a concise description of the image, including but not limited to the year it was taken/produced. While this is of course more worthwhile for some images than for others, I think the Josselin Castle one should be justified, as the look of the building might change over time (however unlikely) and it could still be useful information to readers taking an interest in the picture.
Regarding "illuminated in the evening sunlight": I concede that this could sound like what a tourist agency would write, but this is indeed in the picture's file description page; I decided to include it so as to provide a fuller description of the image. Feel free to reword the passage if you're strongly opposed to it. In general, information about the picture itself could double as descriptive alt text for the picture. Anyway, I hadn't had time yesterday to write the Josselin Castle blurb as completely as I would normally do; some help in expanding it would be much appreciated. Cheers and thanks. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 15:41, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Something nobody else has mentioned yet: Wikipedia:Main Page queue shows no text for the picture of July 10 yet, which is OK. But when most of the text (not just last-minute copyedits) isn't done until a few hours before it goes on the Main Page, that is perhaps the most frequent source of POTD typos and such. I hate to tell volunteers to hurry up, so let's think of it as "let's not post something until it's had a day or two for proofreading." Art LaPella (talk) 21:20, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
Evening all! @Coffeeandcrumbs, Ravenpuff, and Amakuru: Sorry for being even later, just had a really good evening kayak with a playful harbour seal that definitely didn't have an American accent. Going to try to respond to everyone in one long comment... [edit conflict, not responding to Art LaPella]
I don't think it's productive to hash over why Chris decided to leave. I had just gone offline then (after being harassed over my opinions of AfC/G13) and don't know the full story. The ship has indeed been kept afloat, that's all that's important going forward.
I agree that the quality (which of course includes fact checking) of what is actually on the main page is the most important thing. I don't know how many people click through to the bold article? With DYKs hits have been falling off – it used to be easy to get 5000+ but lately I've seen ones with only 200 hits, and I gather that the TFA hits have been declining too. As I recall, most of The Rambling Man's issues were with the article – we linked some orange-tagged ones as I recall – not the caption. It's great that you are improving the target articles, Amakuru, but I don't understand why FP creators are being let off the hook on this front. I'd certainly support considering the state of the target article when promoting en-wiki FPs – otherwise we do just devolve to a copy of the Commons process. I don't see why the FP creator should get to have the final say over the target article.
Postponing (or even shelving) FPs with inadequate articles until the article can be fixed is certainly an option. I don't see why they have to run in order of promotion; that's never been how TFA has been run.
I also don't think we need to make this whole process too bureaucratic. All we need to do is to ensure that many hands make light work, not scrambled egg! I'm definitely taking away from it that I need to look at the blurbs much earlier than when/after they hit the main page; I'm happy to work here rather than Errors, which can get a bit abrasive at times, to put it mildly. I'd suggest that Amakuru makes sure they are comfortable with all of them well in advance, and make sure that's clear possibly by a null edit with an appropriate summary.
I don't personally like the idea of a two-part blurb, as Ravenpuff describes. I don't think an encyclopedic summary of the whole article is necessary at all. The caption should always relate to the picture, not the article. I also don't see the need for a separate description of the image. I strongly disagree with the idea that a date is always necessary. Why? Obviously for historical photos & artwork, but not for contemporary amateur photographs (unless there's some reason, eg a building that has changed). If someone wants to know the date, they can just click through to the image description page. I just don't see the need for it, it feels like bloat/boiler plate or worse vanity – no-one puts the date of writing after the TfA! Everywhere else on the main page we aim for concision, why not here?
I'd also suggest going back to running any necessary information about the image back into the main caption, not highlighting it on a separate line. That was what was done in the past (as I recall) and it's being used in this month's captions for artworks, I think.
I don't recommend aiming for a character minimum. Some of Chris's were very short, and imo they looked fine. If there's too much text imo it looks cluttered and detracts from the image; obviously this is a matter of opinion!
Re specific captions: I thought the grey squirrel was far too long, given that most English speakers will be familiar with the subject, but otherwise inoffensive, as long as the facts were checked. The others Coffeeandcrumbs mentions were fine on a quick look. On Josselin Castle, I'd hack all of that out. The fact the image description contains it is completely irrelevant. Plenty of people write trivia all over the encyclopedia, we generally try to take it out, not advertise it on the main page.
Anyway, just some random thoughts for consideration. I'm not suggesting any concrete steps beyond continuing to talk about process, ideal captions &c. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:51, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
As to the drop in readership, I believe that is all because someone made the stupid decision to only include TFA and ITN on mobile phones. More and more people are viewing Wikipedia on their phones. Antananarivo stampede received 21,000+ views on the day it was posted (3 July) even though it occurred and the article was created on 26 July. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 00:04, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Created 27 June. Art LaPella (talk) 00:38, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Touche but I hope you get my point. Below the fold sections are going to continue getting less and less views with the death of the desktop. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 00:46, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Oh, I realised DYK had been dropped from mobile, but not the picture & OTD. Being a tech dinosaur who actually doesn't possess a mobile I don't follow what happens to that view. That's sad. (Btw, that was the article where tooltips preserved the incorrect future date for ages, which might have given it a boost.)
And while I'm here, I'd second Art LaPella's earlier comment on getting the captions lined up early, to allow plenty of time for fact checking, copy editing, discussing flavo(u)r of English et al.
Which reminds me, I'd really like to propose formally that we should ditch the duplicate version, which seems to have got lost in the wall of text. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:51, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Yeah, that sounds like a good step forward, although it would probably require much rewriting of the wikitext behind the POTD templates and the Main Page (not that it's necessarily unachievable). — RAVENPVFF · talk · 07:25, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
More quick thoughts:
I agree with a lot of what's been suggested here. We probably want to avoid bureaucracy, as noted, and probably a full "requests" page would be overkill, given that this gets less attention than RFA. The present system is for me to schedule most of them, but for others to move things around or schedule special occasions as they see fit, and that's probably OK.
On the purpose of POTD, I strongly disagree with the assertion that it is mainly about the pretty picture (to bring that term back into the mix again!). Every section on the main page exists primarily to point people at Wikipedia's encyclopedic content, in line with WP:5P1. The TFA points to an article with brilliant prose etc, ITN points to articles covering topics in the news, DYK points to new or good articles through the use of hooks, and OTD points to articles about date-specific historical events. But the common thread is that they all point to encyclopedic content. POTD is no different. It is there to highlight encyclopedic content through the use of a brilliant picture. If our only goal were to show a nice picture, we could just set up a bot to run a feed from the Commons FP set and leave it at that.
And actually, the articles in question does usually get a nice spike from its POTD appearance. For harbo(u)r seal, this meant a rise from a daily average of 300-400, up to 3,677 for the day in question. We really should put the other sections back on the mobile view, I don't see a legitimate reason to hide our content from them, and few mobiles are incapable of handling one pageful of text.
I take the point about last-minute entries, so will go through later today and schedule a lot more entries for the coming weeks, without prose (yet) so that we can start building them up and copyediting them further in advance.
On the duplicated templates, I assume the reason for the current arrangement is that the unprotected version works through a template, whose parameters are easy to fill in, while the protected version is layed out with HTML tags and wiki-markup, which would be easy to mess up for editors unfamiliar with such syntax. I'm neutral on whether it needs to be moved to one version only - maybe Anomie, who maintains the POTD bot can copy on whether that would be feasible? Either way, as Ravenpuff notes, there will be some work involved, it's not something we can just switch off with no notice. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:43, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Amakuru. I dropped the last twelve into the pageviews: quite a range with a couple only just over a thousand, most in the range 3000–6000, one nearly 9000 (Nobel Prize for Physics) and an outlier at 33,400 (Frida Kahlo) that had a base of 5000–10,000, so might have experienced a lower fold change. Fascinating! Probably a a little higher than current DYK but very akin to the DYK a few years back.
On the two templates, the protected version seems to be created by the bot, which is a pain as it divorces it from all the edit history. (In fact technically it's not allowed, as it's losing all the attribution.) Could it instead move the draft version, overwrite all the boiler plate with the main-page html version to create the new protected version? Anyone who can edit through full protection should be used to tiptoeing round all that gubbins, and anyone else can't edit it. Or am I missing something? Espresso Addict (talk) 12:59, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
If anyone actually cares and can't figure out that "Creating protected version of a WP:POTD template" means that Template:POTD protected/2024-11-15 comes from Template:POTD/2024-11-15, it would be easy enough to update the bot. Your "move" idea seems to indicate that you don't have any idea how the system actually works; I'd suggest you figure that out before making suggestions on changing it. Anomie⚔ 01:09, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
POTD has "HTML tags and wiki-markup", but so does everything else. The unprotected version is {{POTD {{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}} |image=Russian Fleet (1892) il. 07 Chesma - Restoration, cropped.jpg |size=399 |title=''[[Russian battleship Chesma (1886)|Chesma]]'' |texttitle=''Chesma'' |caption=[text goes here] |credit=Print credit: Stadler and Pattinot, after Vasily Ignatius; restored by [[User:Adam Cuerden|Adam Cuerden]] }}<noinclude>[[Category:Wikipedia Picture of the day {{#time:F Y|{{SUBPAGENAME}}}}]] ==See also== *[[Template:POTD{{#ifeq:{{BASEPAGENAME}}|POTD protected||_protected}}/{{SUBPAGENAME}}]]</noinclude>
The featured article template, for instance, is: {{TFAIMAGE|James-B-McCreary.jpg| In 1914}} [text goes here] {{TFAFULL|James B. McCreary}} {{TFArecentlist| * [[1999 FIFA Women's World Cup]] * [[Yellow-tailed black cockatoo]] * [[Eve Russell]] }} {{TFAfooter|Month=July|Year=2019}} Even random articles have infoboxes, navigation templates, categories, reflist, defaultsort, succession boxes etc. Art LaPella (talk) 14:23, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I have no clue what all this looks like in the visual editor!
On a broader point, I'm surprised that editors of target articles are not being notified of upcoming PotDs, at least where the article has a clear principal editor or caretaker. They presumably know more about the article than others, and will have to handle any vandalism, good-faith newbie edits and talk page queries that result from ten-folding the views for the day. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:36, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I think whoever is loading up the POTD queue would be prudent in notifying relevant wikiprojects as well (eg. wikiproject birds about a bird, mammals about a mammal etc.) in the hope of an article getting an extra lookover Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:30, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Good point. The ones you mention & other zoological ones, plus Women in Red & Milhist, are still highly active. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:36, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
There are a few potential issues with removing the use of a substed "protected" template on the main page:
  1. Main page cascading protection would extend to templates that are currently substed out: {{ifsubst}}, {{POTD row}}, Module:POTD titletext, and the POTD day templates for "yesterday" and "tomorrow" (which means that Wikipedia:Main Page/Tomorrow would result in cascade-protecting the POTD template two days out, and Wikipedia:Main Page/Yesterday two days back). Also {{!)}} and {{POTD texttitle}}, but those are already fully-protected at the moment.
    • Although we could probably remove the calls to {{ifsubst}} if we're no longer supporting substing.
  2. The substing freezes the "Recently featured" list, while non-substing always produces them for the current date. See past discussion at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day/Archive 7#"Recently featured" on the "row" display method, where fixing that did not have consensus.
  3. I don't know if parser performance is a concern for the main page, or whether the templates and modules used by {{POTD row}} are expensive enough to matter.
  4. I just realized that #Use of Module:Random may be problematic. But the most straightforward workaround I came up with would work fine either way.
Note that until March 2019 {{POTD/YYYY-MM-DD/row}} didn't work at all when non-substed. Other than #2 above, that's now fixed. I don't think any of these are necessarily blockers for ending the use of "protected" templates, it'd come down to consensus. HTH. Anomie⚔ 01:09, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Anomie: Thanks for responding! Most of this I can't get my head round, sorry, but I think I'm suggesting the opposite, ie move the draft image+caption to the protected site by UTC midnight of the night before. More generally I've seen repeated calls to merge the templates somehow going back to 2017 at least from several editors/admins independently. If the merge needs a little more work upfront, I think it would still be well worth it. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:22, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Russian battleship Chesma (1886): tomorrow's PotD

Sorry to get to this so late! A few notes & queries. Pinging @Amakuru, Adam Cuerden, and Sturmvogel 66:

  • I've changed the date of the lithograph from 1893 to 1892, per the image legend. This is not referenced anywhere and I can't find it on a quick look at the BnF site.
@Espresso Addict: https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb40588985m has the publication date as 1892. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 6.8% of all FPs 13:26, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Just looking at the lead, the 1907 date is the date she was stricken, not dismantled. She was dismembered at an unknown date, renamed in 1912 and scrapped in the mid-1920s. I'd suggest changing "dismantled" to "decommissioned".
  • Should we be using US or UK spelling for "armor" in the blurb? I have no preference. Both are used at similar frequency in the article. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:08, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
Also pinging @Ravenpuff: who added some of this to the caption after it was created. Espresso Addict (talk) 23:25, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
I've actioned "dismantled" to "decommissioned" as this is now live. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:17, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict and Ravenpuff: I don't think the bit about it being in the collection of the Bibliothèque National de France is helpful, as I believe - the title's a little generic - this was pretty widely printed, but the phrasing makes it sound a bit like it's exclusively available there. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 6.8% of all FPs 13:33, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Good point. Maybe we could reword it to say "this copy is now in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France", as we seem to have done in the past, although I wouldn't be against removing the phrase entirely. Pointing out the source for a historical image is probably still worthwhile, though. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 15:03, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks for responding, Adam Cuerden. I've belatedly hacked it out altogether, as it's misleading. If people are interested in the source they will no doubt look at the image page. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:20, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Template:POTD protected/2019-07-10

And on the subject of last-minute blurbs, tomorrow's remains a redlink. Is it worth moving one of the later ones forward? I don't know what the ordering rationale is, but Gonepteryx rhamni (brimstone butterfly) looks an uncontroversial suggestion. Espresso Addict (talk) 00:17, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

I moved Gonepteryx rhamni as you suggested as that is not a special occasion. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 07:28, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Ravenpuff: North Africa is a proper noun. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 07:31, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Coffeeandcrumbs. Didn't we used to use common names for species, where possible? Brimstone butterflies are pretty well known, but I didn't recognise the binomial name. Espresso Addict (talk) 07:42, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
There are many "brimstone butterflies" like there are many species of squirrels. This is one specific species of the brimstone that is pictured here. I would always choose the title of the article to be bold. The common name is give immediately following. I do not believe we should circumvent any local consensus at the article for what the proper title of the article is. I believe precision is more important in any case. This is an encyclopedia and not a POTD fan website. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 08:16, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Please capitalize North Africa. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 08:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Sure, but "common brimstone" is a redirect to Gonepteryx rhamni. I see no reason to bold the binomial name necessarily. Different Wikiprojects have different views on whether to use binomial or common, and there's no reason to be bound by them. What I often do in articles is some variant on "[[Gonepteryx rhamni|common brimstone]], ''Gonepteryx rhamni''".
I've capitalised North. I've made some other changes – please review – and standardised on UK English (it was a mix). Happy to change back if anyone objects but will be going offline soon until this evening.
I note someone's removed the photo description but in this case I think we do need to state this is a male, as they are sexually dimorphic. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:57, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Seconded; I think all we need to remove there is the year that the photo was taken. Stating where the specimen was found is also generally useful. I've re-added the photo description (sans year) to and fixed another instance of ENGVAR in the blurb in the regular POTD version. Please sync the protected version with this and feel free to discuss if needed. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:12, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Also, an admin needs to change the date over at the file's description page, which still says July 19, 2019. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:18, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Going offline now, but @Ravenpuff:, coloration is thus spelled in both US & UK. Espresso Addict (talk) 09:33, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Amakuru: we should probably clarify it is the dorsal side that is yellow in males. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 14:12, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

The male looks female to me. The article calls the same picture male in the infobox, but "males have yellow wings and iridescence while females have greenish-white wings and are not iridescent", and compare the pictures at Gonepteryx rhamni#Pupa (there are two sections called "Adult"). Art LaPella (talk) 14:28, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes, I've just been looking at this for the last 15 mins and haven't found a clear source yet. From looking at the pics at [4] (which I'm not sure if it's reliable or not), I suspect this is actually a male - the underwing seems to be a darker green than the female's, and that's what we're seeing in our pic here. Presumably it was deemed to be male by the photographer?  — Amakuru (talk) 14:32, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Oh dear, perhaps this wasn't a good suggestion, sorry! It ran on Commons PotD in 2016 as a male, presumably without any disagreement being voiced. Espresso Addict (talk) 21:26, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Where's our resident butterfly gender expert when we need them?  — Amakuru (talk) 21:38, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Casliber: Are you any good at butterfly gender? Espresso Addict (talk) 21:57, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Going to the photographer's Commons user page, he has a matching female adjacent which is much paler, so I think it's probably ok. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:30, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Yes, that was the sense I got from the pictures in the link I've posted above.  — Amakuru (talk) 22:41, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Heh, my skills at sexing northern hemisphere Lepidoptera are probably on par with other folks on this page :) Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 00:16, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

11 July: Catalan Atlas

Nice image! Not checked carefully but so far...

I'd change to "who was self-described as a master of the world maps, as well as compasses" to "who called himself a master map-maker" and miss out compasses.
"64.5 by 50 cm (25.4 by 19.7 in)" This looks very odd to me; I was taught always to repeat the unit in these constructions, but it looks as if this is created by the translation template, so perhaps has the weight of MoS behind it??
What's the English flavo(ur)? I'd say UK, as it contains a map of Europe with Britain in it, rather than US. Espresso Addict (talk) 22:07, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
"the most important map of the medieval period in the Catalan language" - I was going to look for a way of rewording this, and maybe changing it to some more objective. Aside from anything, the second source doesn't just say it's the most important in the Catalan language, but overall... although it attributes that to an unspecified "described as"  — Amakuru (talk) 22:45, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Amakuru: Ref 1 doesn't look neutral & is outdated (1940). Perhaps we could quote Ref 2: "has been described as 'the zenith of medieval map-work'" (though I can't see the source of that quotation)? Espresso Addict (talk) 23:13, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
@Amakuru: I also wonder whether it should be the Catalan Atlas or else the Catalan atlas. The compass rose fact checks out and could perhaps be added. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:22, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Looking at ngrams it is more commonly capitalised, so I guess we should italicise it as a proper name.  — Amakuru (talk) 08:03, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
@Amakuru: Are you planning to edit it, or shall I? If we're not careful we'll each edit the two different versions and mutually self-destruct trying to sync them... Espresso Addict (talk) 08:53, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
He he! Go ahead, then. I'll have another look at it later on. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 09:08, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Template:POTD protected/2019-07-11: see what you think. I haven't copied to the unprotected version. Offline now, but back late evening. Espresso Addict (talk) 09:57, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
copyedit Art LaPella (talk) 13:57, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
The blurb seems all right to me. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 14:27, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Looks good to me too. Thanks all  — Amakuru (talk) 14:41, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Well, seeing no disagreements, I've gone ahead and copied the new blurb to the regular version. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 14:54, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Great. Thanks all, especially Art LaPella for catching my idiotic mistake! Onwards and upwards... Espresso Addict (talk) 22:23, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Note

I've shoved in a couple images for 17 and 22 July, just to try and get things set up a bit further in advance. If someone wants to fill the remaining slots for this month, that'd be better than me doing so, though. Feel free to move those two entries forwards a month or two if anyone wants those days. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 6.8% of all FPs 19:13, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Yes I'm on the case. Will hopefully get us well ahead of where we are soon.  — Amakuru (talk) 19:36, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Happy to have a go at 13 July Wells Cathedral, if no one objects, as that's close to my usual editing haunts? Espresso Addict (talk) 22:42, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Aie -- Just noticed there are supposed to be six images in a set here!! I've figured out where the pix are, but it's tricky to edit all six if one can't actually seen them at once.
Just starting the Lady Chapel one (before I realised there were six) I've found some problems with the article (some facts in the 2014 featured version are now unsourced and noted as disputed). Not to mention the fact that Wikipedia seems to be in read-only mode most of the time. Will make an(other) espresso... Espresso Addict (talk) 01:16, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Anyway, I think what we've usually done for multiple POTDs on the same topic is that the blurb is largely the same for all the pictures (Wells Cathedral in this case), with the location featured in a specific image described briefly at the end. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 01:37, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Er... that works for the front & back sides of a note/coin, sure, but Wells Cathedral is one of the most important & beautiful buildings in the UK! If that's what's proposed for these gorgeous pix, I'd suggest splitting them up and running them at intervals. I've drafted a first stab at the lady chapel (#5) but will lay off bothering to write any more until Amakuru comes back online. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:47, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
I've had things be done both ways. Although I'm still a little annoyed my rather massive William Russell Flint set got put into one day. Have occasionally wanted to ask if it could at least rerun, to give each image in it more than 4 hours. Adam Cuerden (talk)Has about 6.8% of all FPs 02:29, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
I can see why it's done for highly related (and a bit dull) images, but I thought it was mainly being used to prevent the waiting list from growing owing to promotions > 365.25 a year. I don't have much to do with quality images (my camera has spots on the lens that just won't come off) but I gather that's no longer the case? Espresso Addict (talk) 02:43, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
@Espresso Addict: @Ravenpuff: @Adam Cuerden: alright, I don't have a strong opinion on this so if you'd rather each image get its own day in the limelight then that's fine. I've moved the lady-chapel one to exclusive use for the day. Only that to avoid undue repetition, it will probably be a long time before we get through them all! Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:32, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
I think splitting up the set could definitely permit each picture more attention on the Main Page. My suggestion is that we space out the images so that there's at least a month or two in between each one. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:42, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Thanks, Amakuru. I haven't looked at them all in detail (perhaps some of the others could be combined eg the two on the chapter house) but there's a lot of educational value to be wrung from Wells Cathedral. It gets us off the hook in the short term, anyway. I've added a lead sentence (the 1490 date appears uncited and possibly wrong). See what you all think. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:15, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Tomorrow: Template:POTD protected/2019-07-12: Kombat (photograph)

Not my subject area, and I have no Russian, but it seems unnecessary to tell the reader it is a black-and-white photograph. The TT pistol identification appears unsourced and might be original research. The most iconic comment also appears unsourced. I'd also delete the source information unless it is clear that there is only one copy in existence, which seems very unlikely. I tried looking at the archive source at the RIA Novosti archive but the page has been deleted. On a minor note, the single quotation marks might need to be double to comply with MoS. Espresso Addict (talk) 02:31, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

I think specifying that the photo is black-and-white is useful for readers that might not otherwise be able to see the picture (e.g. visually impaired). As the source in the Commons summary seems to imply that the RIA Novosti archive holds the original negative of the photo, saying that the photo is held there probably isn't too much of a stretch. Moreover, MOS:SINGLE states that single quotes are used for translations/glosses, so I don't think that should be a problem. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:52, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
Also pinging TheFreeWorld, who wrote the majority of the blurb. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:53, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
The inner depths of MoS never cease to amaze me. Espresso Addict (talk) 10:18, 11 July 2019 (UTC)
(edit conflict) You probably already know my view on what the blurb should be - it should be a reasonably full blurb describing the encyclopedic topic, not just a caption, so my !vote goes to keeping the mention of black-and-white, as clearly that's an important aspect of the photograph. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:20, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Use of Module:Random may be problematic

In looking into the above section, I realized that the use of Module:Random may allow a vandal to partially get around Main Page protection, since as far as I can tell only one of the random alternatives will be cascade-protected at any time. The existence of WP:Main Page/1, WP:Main Page/2, and so on helps mitigate this, since each of those could theoretically cascade-protect a different random alternative, but it's possible they could fail to cover all the alternatives. If I'm wrong about that, please teach me.

The next time I see a multiple POTD scheduled is for Template:POTD/2019-10-10, so we have a little time to figure it out. Now Template:POTD/2019-07-13. The most straightforward solution I could come up with was User:Anomie/POTD transcluder and Module:User:Anomie/POTD transcluder. If we cascade-protect the former (and if necessary have a bot like User:Joe's Null Bot purge it daily), that should ensure all the alternatives are protected. If we like that idea, I can move those to better titles and do the protection. Anomie⚔ 01:09, 9 July 2019 (UTC)

@Anomie: this is an interesting issue, that I had never considered before, so thanks for bringing it up. I'll leave it up to you to make the best technical decision on this, and you can advise on what we need to do to honour it. Note that I have now scheduled one for Template:POTD/2019-07-13, and I've added all six images to Wikipedia:Main Page/Commons media protection for the time being, which will ensure there won't be a problem. But if you have a better solution, please go ahead. Thanks  — Amakuru (talk) 09:28, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
I'll wait a day or so in case anyone else has comments. Anomie⚔ 11:54, 9 July 2019 (UTC)
Ok, moved to WP:Picture of the day/On the main pages and Module:POTD transcluder, and cascade-protected the former. Anomie⚔ 13:13, 11 July 2019 (UTC)

Day after tomorrow: Electrical cable

The target article has been tag bombed (not by me). I asked my other half who knows about cabling in the UK (but not in Serbia), who thinks the existing legend in the article is incorrect. Specifically "flexible" cable aka "flex" would not have solid cores and the cable used in wiring houses (at least in the UK) would have a bare earth not a sheathed earth. Cable with 2.5 mm2 solid copper cores is bendable but not flexible. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:43, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

I have pushed this one back six months, as it looks like there simply isn't enough referenced material to construct anything from it. I will see if I can get some better material for the article before it comes around again. Have replaced with Clarinet, which is a good article, and constructed a blurb from that. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:15, 12 July 2019 (UTC)
Good idea, and blurb is looking ok. Personally I'd mention jazz, too, as a major distinction between the clarinet & most other classical woodwind. Espresso Addict (talk) 13:25, 12 July 2019 (UTC)

28 October TFP, Nadar's Hermaphrodite

Discussion is at Talk:Main page#Graphic_image_on_main_page? Please contribute there.  — Amakuru (talk) 06:01, 14 July 2019 (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.

A penis and a vagina. How rude.

Redirected from this discussion on the main page's talk page. Have at it. Isa (talk) 02:24, 14 July 2019 (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.

16 July: Saturn V

Apologies to those that have been working hard on this for quite some time, but I'm seeing a few issues I'd like to improve with this entry. In particular:

  1. It is very heavy on numbers, many of which are not going to mean that much to a lay reader; makes it look like a technical fact sheet
  2. There are a lot of blue links to technical terms, some of which could probably be removed or unlinked
  3. Some important details are missing, including any mention of Wernher von Braun, who was arguably the single most vital individual in the entire Apollo programme.

This actually appeared as a TFA, back in the mists of time when Wikipedia was a baby: Wikipedia:Today's featured article/December 10, 2004. Of course, standards of writing have changed since then, but I find that a more succinct and comprehensive summary than the current version and I'm tempted to use that as a starting point and then add select bits of the current text back into it. Happy to hear alternative views though.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Coffeeandcrumbs who wrote most of the blurb. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 14:19, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
Amakuru, I agree on all your points and am open to a rewrite. I only advocate to keep some of the dimensions of the rockets in place and also the amount of time the rocket fired. When rewriting, we should try as much as possible to describe what is visible in the photograph (i.e. the encyclopedic value of the photograph):
All the above are important in understanding what is happening in the photograph. Please go ahead and take a crack at adding Wernher von Braun and I can also help remove some extra material. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 14:54, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
@Coffeeandcrumbs: thanks, I'll have a look at it later on today.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:22, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
(Actually it'll probably be tomorrow now, it's getting late!)  — Amakuru (talk) 21:45, 10 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Hi all - I have written an alternative draft for consideration at Template talk:POTD/2019-07-16. It is based on both the current version and what was in the TFA entry - retaining the note on the launch, and some of the key statistics around the height and weight, but also incorporating some of the other encyclopedic aspects such as von Braun, the mission history and the Skylab. Without being overly long. What do people think?  — Amakuru (talk) 19:09, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
    There's probably a simple explanation, but if adding a "recently featured" section was intentional, we need to make the 3 links recent. Art LaPella (talk) 23:22, 13 July 2019 (UTC)
    I've copyedited the alternative blurb a little (ENGVAR, layout, etc.), including fixing the links in the "Recently featured" section. It seems perfectly acceptable to me, although Coffeeandcrumbs is more knowledgeable than me about this topic. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 15:50, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
    Looks good to me too. I have copied it to the Template side. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 17:23, 14 July 2019 (UTC)
    Excellent. Thanks all for getting this together.  — Amakuru (talk) 15:38, 15 July 2019 (UTC)

23 July; Tranquility Base

Amakuru, I question the prudence of having yet another photo of an astronaut on the Moon this week. By 23 July, they were already on their way back from the Moon. I think by the 23rd, we would have exhausted any patience from the community for Apollo 11. I suggest substituting another science-related article or perhaps a map of the Earth (something global). --- Coffeeandcrumbs 14:17, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Canis Major scheduled for 25 July would be a nice substitute. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 14:20, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Oh hmm.... I have been chopping these in and out on the assumption we were going all on this one with something every day of the mission, similar to what's happening at DYK with Wikipedia_talk:Did_you_know#The_50th_anniversary_of_the_Moon_landing_is_almost_here!... Personally I would favour that, as we know the Apollo 11 thing is a big deal and we're celebrating it across the Main Page. The advantage for POTD is that we have a good variety of topics covered, many promoted recently, including bios and articles such as Tranquility Base. Who do you think is going to get exhausted?  — Amakuru (talk) 14:22, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

Possible order

@Coffeeandcrumbs: @Ravenpuff: @Espresso Addict: Running with the idea of using the constellation image, and doing spade but not necessarily dudes on the moon, how does the above ordering look? Moon would be an IAR reuse from 2013,but we've done that before. Another option would be Sun which has not been featured yet... Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 15:06, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Certainly won't hear me complaining! But I know a few editors were not happy with repeating the same subject for a whole week when it was discussed at WT:TFA #RfC: Apollo 11. If no one else has a problem with it here, neither do I. You should just add the Sun for July 19. Great idea in my book!--- Coffeeandcrumbs 15:16, 16 July 2019 (UTC)
Except for Parkes and Aldrin on the Moon, all the others can be reshuffled as needed. --- Coffeeandcrumbs 15:18, 16 July 2019 (UTC)

POTD notification?

Is there any straightforward way to notify an image creator when it's used for POTD? It's a nice feel-good moment to see one's image on the main page, and the last couple times my FPs have been used I had no idea until afterwards. Not a big deal, I suppose, but a "nice to have." — Rhododendrites talk \\ 14:56, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

WP:POTD/G does specify a {{NotifyPOTD}} template for use in notifying POTD creators/uploaders, but I think it's fallen out of use. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 16:25, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

Golden Madonna of Essen

I want to make a suggestion: The Golden Madonna of Essen please.Simon9292 (talk) 17:31, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

@Simon9292: The English Wikipedia doesn't have a featured picture of it, so unfortunately it can't happen – unless you upload a good picture of the Golden Madonna yourself and put it through the featured picture process, of course. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:39, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-07-30 does not exist - Fixed

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-07-30, I found that Template:POTD/2019-07-30 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, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

Why is template with narrow caption column used?

Why does the page Wikipedia:Picture of the day uses Template:Pic of the day? Using Template:POTD protected (or its subpages in a way, similar to Main Page) might be more useful. Compare:

Extended content

{{POTD protected}}

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This page is about the English Wikipedia's picture of the day. For the article about pictures of the day in general, see POTD.
Featured picture tools
Purge page cache

The picture of the day (POTD) is an image that is automatically updated each day with a featured picture on the English Wikipedia. Although the POTD is generally scheduled by one editor (currently Amakuru), anyone can contribute. If you have concerns about today's or tomorrow's POTD, please post at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If you have concerns about an upcoming POTD, consider either fixing it yourself or posting at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day or at User talk:Amakuru.

Sherman's March to the Sea

Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army. The campaign began on November 15, 1864, with Sherman's troops leaving Atlanta, recently taken by Union forces, and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces followed a "scorched earth" policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property, disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks. The operation debilitated the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. This picture shows an engraving by Alexander Hay Ritchie depicting Sherman's March to the Sea.

Engraving. credit: Alexander Hay Ritchie; restored by Adam Cuerden

Recently featured:
vs

{{Pic of the day}}

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This page is about the English Wikipedia's picture of the day. For the article about pictures of the day in general, see POTD.
Featured picture tools
Purge page cache

The picture of the day (POTD) is an image that is automatically updated each day with a featured picture on the English Wikipedia. Although the POTD is generally scheduled by one editor (currently Amakuru), anyone can contribute. If you have concerns about today's or tomorrow's POTD, please post at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If you have concerns about an upcoming POTD, consider either fixing it yourself or posting at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day or at User talk:Amakuru.


Sherman's March to the Sea
Sherman's March to the Sea was a military campaign of the American Civil War conducted through Georgia by Major General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union army. The campaign began on November 15, 1864, with Sherman's troops leaving Atlanta, recently taken by Union forces, and ended with the capture of the port of Savannah on December 21. His forces followed a "scorched earth" policy, destroying military targets as well as industry, infrastructure, and civilian property, disrupting the Confederacy's economy and transportation networks. The operation debilitated the Confederacy and helped lead to its eventual surrender. This picture shows an engraving by Alexander Hay Ritchie depicting Sherman's March to the Sea.Engraving. credit: Alexander Hay Ritchie; restored by Adam Cuerden
Archive – More featured pictures...

Width (seems to be kept for backward compatibility) of Template:Pic of the day reduces readability of the caption. —⁠andrybak (talk) 22:20, 28 July 2019 (UTC)

@Andrybak: Thanks for the suggestion; I've replaced the {{Pic of the day}} transclusion with a copy of the Main Page syntax of the POTD section. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:57, 29 July 2019 (UTC)

Small image on mobile version of POTD

Hello all, newbie Ron here. First let me say I thank you all for all your hard work putting the POTD together every day. I am using it and the featured article of the day for an ed. project. If you look at the mobile version at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Picture_of_the_day you will see the pic is very, very small - BUT if you go to the archived version at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:POTD/2019-08-03 all is well with the world... row vs. column output? Just thought you might like to know... cheers --Rsurratt (talk · contribs) 21:34, 3 August 2019 (UTC)

@Rsurratt: This is caused by a combination of several factors. First, there is a following bit of CSS used for mobile version of the site:
.content a > img, .content a > .lazy-image-placeholder, .content noscript > img {
    max-width: 100% !important;
}
Second, page Wikipedia:Picture of the day uses same layout (through Template:Pic of the day/Main Page style), as desktop version of Main Page (note that mobile version of the main page does not include a "Featured picture" section). The layout of the Main Page uses protected versions of the same templates, e.g. Template:POTD protected/2019-08-07 today. Protected versions of the POTD templates, created by AnomieBOT, use "row" style (i.e. Template:POTD row), see edit summary. Template:POTD/2019-08-03 looks OK on mobile version, because it uses "default" style, i.e. Template:POTD default, which uses a div tag with explicit width. —⁠andrybak (talk) 04:33, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I've attempted a fix of Template:POTD row. Result can be checked at Template:POTD row/testcases. Since protected versions are created by substitution of templates (i.e. copy-pasting its wikitext whole), addional edit requests are needed to fix the layout of today's picture. —⁠andrybak (talk) 05:00, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
I've applied the fixed version of template to Template:POTD protected/2019-08-03. @Rsurratt: could you please check if it looks OK to you in mobile version? —⁠andrybak (talk) 05:09, 7 August 2019 (UTC)
@Andrybak: I've checked it myself; it definitely looks better now that the actual POTD isn't microscopic. For comparison, here's the old version and the new version. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 10:25, 7 August 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-08-12 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-08-12, I found that Template:POTD/2019-08-12 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, 10 August 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-08-16 does not exist - Fixed

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-08-16, I found that Template:POTD/2019-08-16 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, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-08-18 does not exist - Fixed

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-08-18, I found that Template:POTD/2019-08-18 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 August 2019 (UTC)

Wow. Three times during the last seven days. Shamefull. 199.247.38.17 (talk) 08:57, 17 August 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-08-23 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-08-23, I found that Template:POTD/2019-08-23 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, 21 August 2019 (UTC)

Template:POTD/2012-06-02 image deleted

The image for Template:POTD/2012-06-02 has been deleted. --Tyw7 (🗣️ Talk) — If (reply) then (ping me) 19:47, 16 September 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-10-02 does not exist

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-10-02, I found that Template:POTD/2019-10-02 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 September 2019 (UTC)

POTDPageCreator: Template:POTD/2019-10-02 has unexpected content

While attempting to create Template:POTD protected/2019-10-02, I found that Template:POTD/2019-10-02 does not begin with {{POTD {{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}} or {{POTD/2019-10-02/{{#invoke:random|number|<N>}}|{{{1|{{{style|default}}}}}}}}. Please fix it, or create Template:POTD protected/2019-10-02 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⚡ 09:26, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Template:POTD/2019-10-02

@Ravenpuff: @Coffeeandcrumbs: - I was busy writing a reply to the ERRORS conversation, but then it disappeared, so I'll comment here instead! As Ravenpuff says, the issue of separate vs combined pics came up in discussion, and I couldn't find the converation initially, but the gist of it was that FP contributors weren't too happy with combining separate photographs into one POTD entry, except for cases like a series of currency notes, which were very clearly linked to each other. I don't really see a problem with repeating the same article for different pictures, as long as they're far enough apart in time (i.e. at least a year). On the blurb itself, I have created the protected POTD entry, but from a look through the text it looked (a) a bit too long, and (b) seemed to have unreferenced material in it, so I have used the version of the blurb from the previous run at Template:POTD/2018-09-15. So apologies if this reverses the work done on the previous version, but we really must be taking more care that only cited material is included in the blurbs. This is a bright-line rule for main page content. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 10:41, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

@Amakuru: I don't think that the material in the previous hook was necessarily unreferenced – Bath Abbey is a good article, after all. MOS:LEADCITE also indicates that citations are less of a necessity for the lead if references are already present in the body. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 10:50, 1 October 2019 (UTC)
@Ravenpuff: yes, material from the lead can be mentioned if it's also cited in the body, but I couldn't find anything for the following facts:
  • able to seat 1,200
  • it also hosts civic ceremonies, concerts and lectures
  • There is a heritage museum in the vaults
  • representing Jacob's Ladder
and maybe others... I knew about this because I wrote the original blurb last year, and was frustrated at the time that I couldn't get cites for those bits to include them in the blurb. It would be great if we could always trust GAs to be fully compliant, but sadly the truth is often different... this one was marked as good in 2011 so I guess it's drifted since then. Cheers  — Amakuru (talk) 11:24, 1 October 2019 (UTC)

Protected version

Please please can we improve the method of protecting the current day's picture? The method used by other sections of the main page is to rely on the cascade protection of the main page to protect today and tomorrow's content. Why is this method not used for POTD? I just had to make eight separate edits to fix one simple mistake - 4 versions + 4 protected versions. There has to be a better way of doing this! — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 05:47, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

As for "why", the method used here dates from before cascading protection existed and no one ever changed it. The necessary formatting template didn't even work right when not substed until I fixed it earlier this year.

There's also the fact that the cascade protection would start protecting some additional templates, that the unsubsted "Recently featured" list always works off the current date rather than the date of the POTD, and that it would mean extra parser load for the Main Page. I don't know whether any of those things are considered blockers. Anomie⚔ 12:11, 10 October 2019 (UTC)

I'd like to look into the feasibility of simplifying the POTD process. I don't see any of those things as "blockers", but then I haven't had a chance to really look into things in any detail yet. — Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:51, 16 October 2019 (UTC)

Where to place the {{picture of the day|2019-11-24}} template?

Trying to figure out how to write a blurb, and of course I'm screwing up the very first step. Am I placing this template on an image description page at Commons, or on enwiki? I started to do it at commons, but the preview is showing this:

Expression error: Unexpected < operator. English: {{Potd/Error: Invalid time. (en) }}

Commons image is https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Meintz,_punished_during_World_War_I_-_NARA_-_283633_-_restored.jpg

Thanks for any help! --valereee (talk) 16:19, 16 November 2019 (UTC)

Valereee, sorry. I misunderstood what you were asking on my user talk page. {{Picture of the day}} should go on the local File page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:John_Meintz,_punished_during_World_War_I_-_NARA_-_283633_-_restored.jpg

Suggested modification to POTD/Day

Currently, the {{POTD/Day}} template transcludes {{POTD default}} for display on the various POTD archive pages. However, I have always found this "default" configuration unsatisfactory: the box is only an unwieldy 600 pixels wide, often forcing the blurb into a thin column to the right of the picture. In addition, this display on POTD archive pages is incongruous with TFA and TFL archives, for example, which display their blurbs almost exactly as displayed on the Main Page, filling the entire width of the screen.

To fix this, I have created a new template, {{POTD archive}}, which, when transcluded through {{POTD/Day}}, should be able to display POTDs in the archive pages and elsewhere so as to be more visually pleasing and reflective of its Main Page appearance. Some examples:

Example {{POTD archive}} outputs (November 2019)

November 19

Compass rose

A compass rose, sometimes called a windrose or rose of the winds, is a figure on a compass, map, nautical chart, or monument used to display the orientation of the cardinal directions (north, east, south, and west) and their intermediate points. It is also the term for the graduated markings found on the traditional magnetic compass. Today, a form of compass rose is found on, or featured in, almost all navigation systems, including nautical charts, non-directional beacons, VHF omnidirectional range systems, GPS, and similar equipment.

This picture is an illustration of a compass rose, copied from a 1492 portolan chart by Portuguese navigator and cartographer Jorge de Aguiar, now in the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.

Illustration credit: Joaquim Alves Gaspar, after Jorge de Aguiar

November 10

Les Grandes Baigneuses

Les Grandes Baigneuses ('The Large Bathers') is an oil-on-canvas painting by French artist Pierre-Auguste Renoir, produced between 1884 and 1887. The painting depicts a scene of nude women bathing. In the foreground, two women are seated beside the water, and a third is standing in the water near them. In the background, two others are bathing. Renoir's intention was to reconcile the modern forms of painting with the painting traditions of the 17th and 18th centuries, particularly those of Ingres and Raphael. The painting is now in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Painting credit: Pierre-Auguste Renoir

November 2

Nilgai

The nilgai or blue bull (Boselaphus tragocamelus) is the largest Asian antelope and is endemic to the Indian subcontinent. The sole member of the genus Boselaphus, the species was described and given its binomial name by German zoologist Peter Simon Pallas in 1766. The nilgai stands 1–1.5 metres (3.3–4.9 ft) at the shoulder; males weigh 109–288 kilograms (240–635 lb), and the lighter females 100–213 kilograms (220–470 lb). A sturdy thin-legged antelope, the nilgai is characterised by a sloping back, a deep neck with a white patch on the throat, a short crest of hair along the neck terminating in a tuft, and white facial spots. A column of pendant coarse hair hangs from the dewlap ridge below the white patch. Sexual dimorphism is prominent – while females and juveniles are orange to tawny, adult males have a bluish-grey coat. Only males possess horns, which are 15–24 centimetres (5.9–9.4 in) in length.

This picture shows a male nilgai in a potato field at Jamtra, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Photograph credit: Charles J. Sharp

Would anyone object to such a change to the POTD archive pages? — RAVENPVFF · talk · 17:01, 19 November 2019 (UTC)

POTDs and BLPs

Moved from Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors
 – — RAVENPVFF · talk · 01:04, 23 November 2019 (UTC)
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