Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day/Archive 3

Wierd
I find it odd that there is an S on the front of that U.S. penny. United States coins either have a P or a D there and never an S. The letter tells you where the coin was minted at. If it has a P then it was minted in Philidelphia, Pennsylvania, and if it has a D on it then it was minted in Denver, Colorado. Those are the only two places where coins are minted at so how could this coin have an S when the only letters it could have been are a P or D? Is this coin not a real one or model one? I don't know whether this is a point of concern but I don't find it likely that that penny is a real, spendable United States coin. -- ¿  Why  1  9  9  1  ESP. | Sign Here 18:52, 2 January 2007 (UTC)


 * According to United_States_Mint S is the mark of the San Francisco mint, which only appears on proofs. --Dschwen 19:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

New system
I have implemented a new template system, based on the one I created for the commons POTD. It is a more flexible system and should make adding new listings much easier. Each POTD is stored in five content templates: All current four template versions (text/condensed/row/main page) are created automatically from these. It is also possible to create your own customised version. ed g2s &bull; talk 21:39, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Don't know what to do about the Main Page. One would have to create a protected template using subst: for each day. There's no way to do it automatically whilst enforcing the everything-on-the-main-page-is-protected rule. ed g2s &bull; talk 22:16, 4 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If this is going to be changed, please update Main Page/Tomorrow and associated templates to correctly show tomorrow's featured picture as well. Dragons flight 01:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Sure. ed g2s &bull; talk 01:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

It seems I underestimated the risk this proposed, and the image was indeed vandalised. I will set up a system to make copies for the main page asap. In the meantime the four templates for today have been protected. ed g2s &bull; talk 01:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * ProtectionBot should be able to offset this, once approved, but it is dependent on Main Page/Tomorrow being operational. Dragons flight 01:09, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * /Tomorrow works fine with new templates. ed g2s &bull; talk
 * Why have four templates instead of one? —Centrx→talk &bull; 01:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * The system that we had was perfectly fine, why change it? Did you even discuss beforehand all of the users who actually maintain and edit this? Zzyzx11 (Talk) 01:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * If you wanted to change the caption, or anything else, you had to keep several templates in sync. This requires just one edit (and one admin refresh on the protected version now). I don't think anyone will object to the task being made easier? ed g2s &bull; talk 01:55, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * After examining your new modifications, especially after creating the separate templates for the main page, they look fine. One thing you overlooked was the fact that when the POTD is an animated GIF, we usually put a frame capture on the main page. There were complaints that the animated images slowed down the download speed of the main page. Compare POTD row/January 8, 2007 versus Today's featured picture (animation)/January 8, 2007. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:03, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * In the meantime, I made these modifications:  Zzyzx11 (Talk) 02:37, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm stunned. Late yesterday (UTC), you commented here regarding the need to protect templates appearing on the main page.  You then placed templates on the main page without protecting them.  Now you say that you "underestimated the risk this proposed" and you commented on Centrx's talk page that you "didn't realise it would be such an immediate issue."  You didn't realize that placing unprotected templates on the main page would be an immediate issue?  What the hell?!  &mdash;David Levy 01:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, and I probably should've protected the templates for the day (although that was not what I was suggesting before) as a temporary measure. I'm sorry if you find that so hard to believe, and I'm sorry I was proved to be a bit naive. It wasn't long ago that we had unprotected content on the main page you know. ed g2s &bull; talk 01:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * 1. You "probably should've protected the templates"? Have you recently read Talk:Main Page (where this problem's severity has been discussed at great length)?  If not, what business did you have editing the main page?
 * 2. You noted the need to "create a protected template using subst for each day," so you obviously were aware that main page content should be protected. Why did you then place unprotected content on the main page?  Were you under the impression that the "security through obscurity" theory applied?
 * 3. Frankly, I'm about ready to petition the developers for a higher level of page protection to be assigned by bureaucrats strictly to admins who can demonstrate a basic understanding of the main page. Nothing personal, Ed, but I'm fed up with sysops wandering in, compromising the main page's integrity (to the embarrassment of the entire community), and pleading ignorance.  As the number of admins increases, this problem is only going to get worse, and we shouldn't have to depend on bots to mitigate the damage.
 * I must say that I'm surprised to see this sort of rookie mistake from a veteran sysop. I'm not trying to mean, but this is a big deal, and your response has been rather nonchalant. &mdash;David Levy 02:46, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I can't say I agree with your pessimistic view, and I don't see what your continued complaints are going to achieve. ed g2s &bull; talk 03:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Nothing, evidently, as you won't even answer my questions. &mdash;David Levy 03:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * You haven't asked anything other than various versions of "what the hell do you think you were doing?". I've explained my actions and made my apologies, so I don't really see the point of pursuing the matter. ed g2s &bull; talk 03:31, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * On the contrary, you haven't fully explained your actions. I'm merely attempting to determine what misunderstanding led to your error.  If there's some sort of clarification that will reduce the risk of having 1 in 100 sysops make the same mistake, I want to know what it is.  As I said, I'm not trying to be mean, but something has to be done about this. &mdash;David Levy 05:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Right, the protected template has been created. It's fairly straightforward, and can be updated with a simple subst. See instructions on archive page. ed g2s &bull; talk 01:49, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * David, just drop it. He apologized for his mistake. We're all human (yes, even you), and we all slip up from time to time. The best thing to do is to learn from this incident and bounce back. I know I messed up with the protection on DYK last week on one of my first updates, but I learned from it, and I now systematically follow protection guidelines. Why try to enrage some fury over something like this?  Nish kid 64  03:40, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As noted above, I'm desperately trying to understand the thought process that led to this error. To forget to protect a page is one thing, but I want to know why Ed consciously believed that it was okay not to protect the templates (in the hope of better discouraging such logic in the future).  &mdash;David Levy 05:18, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


 * David, I agree with you, but I think to get across to ed g2s what has been happening here and why you are reacting so strongly, he needs to be directed to something more informative than the Main Page talk. I suggest he (and anyone else you want to bring up to speed in the future) use these four links from various archives:
 * Main page talk from 24 December
 * WP:AN thread from 24 December.
 * WP:ANI thread from 24 December
 * Follow-up WP:AN thread from 24 December
 * Hope that helps. Carcharoth 03:06, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Hold up a minute. I've been writing the PsOTD since last May and I'm don't exactly understand how this works here. How does this change the current system? Have the existing ones (currently done through January 31, 2007) been migrated to this new system? And what I do need to do to create new ones? I guess it's a good thing I never got around to writing instructions about how to update the PsOTD. howcheng {chat} 00:31, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * OK, I guess I can figure it out. I do however see some other problems; besides the animation thing that Zzyxx11 mentioned, (1) the row version uses smaller sizes than the others so as not to take up too much space on the Main Page; (2) when it's a panorama, the layout changes drastically (see Picture of the day/November 12, 2006 for example), and the image size is different for the column version in this case (because of its use in the Main Page alternatives where it doesn't go across the entire content area). I like having some of the things compartmentalized (caption and credit for example), but we need far more flexibity than this system allows. howcheng {chat} 00:49, 6 January 2007 (UTC)


 * As a side note, generating the listings has never been particularly difficult. It's write-once, then copy-paste with minimal changes to create the other versions, thanks to the suite of templates starting with Generate POTD T. Maintenance of changes has been the only annoying part, having to copy-paste them to each version. Perhaps the best way to go ahead with this is to use a combination of the Generate POTD templates with these subtemplates. Lemme mull on this and maybe edit the Generate templates later tonight to see if I can make something work. Ed, while I appreciate the work you've put into this, a little heads up would have been nice since you don't have any experience with the en-WP PsOTD, or at least with the current system if you used to do it before Solitude and Solipsist. howcheng {chat} 00:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

I did take time out to study the en POTDs, and I implemented the POTD system on Commons. The whole point of this system is that it eliminates the need for the generated templates. The only template that needs to be generated is the protected one. There's no need for the generating templates anymore so I'm not exactly sure what you are planning. In response to your two questions: (1) size can be passed as a parameter, and the main page templates use a 250x250 bounding box, giving the smaller images required (2) I did come across this, but I'm still trying to think of a way to do this neatly. I think some parser functions based on width == 500 might work nicely. ed g2s &bull; talk 03:55, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed - at the expense of one more varaible, although putting the size in with the filename was a bit of a hack. Just to point out, that as these templates exist to let people use the POTD wherever they desire (otherwise we'd just copy and paste out of the archive for the main page), part of the update was not only to make them easier to maintain, but easier for people to transclude as one-off POTD boxes can now be created to fit any purpose (for a simple example, see my user page). ed g2s &bull; talk 04:37, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * My idea was to keep the layouts in separate subpages at Wikipedia:Picture of the day, Wikipedia:POTD, Wikipedia:POTD row, and Wikipedia:POTD column (the various Generate templates would create those) but keep the content in Template:POTD image etc. (Just wondering, shouldn't those be in the Wikipedia namespace?) That way, if the layouts ever change again in the future, the older ones are unaffected by any such changes -- I can't say that there's any need to preserve what would be the old layouts, but at the same time, I'm not sure I want to risk it either because it might prove itself useful somehow. Or it could possibly be that what would be the new layouts look horrid when imposed on the older content because the older content would have been laid out with a different look and feel in mind. I hope that makes sense. howcheng {chat} 07:59, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hrrm, could I suggest that rather than having five templates for the different 'variables' (image, caption, credit, size, and title) it would make alot more sense to have one template with the five 'variables' as parameters and a sixth parameter to determine which format to put them all in? That would still allow updates to the text or size or whatever to be made in one place, but transclude two templates instead of six to do it. See for an example of what each daily template would look like and  for the changes which would be made to  to use that format... basically just accepting parameters instead of sub-templates for each 'variable'. --CBD 12:10, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

New system breaks picture of the day
The template picture of the day is placed on Featured Pictures to indicate when they were POTD and links to their POTD subpage. Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to link to the subpage anymore because none exists now. I've circumvented this with putting the POTD blurb on the image description page, but I'm not happy with this solution. See Image:India roadway map.svg for example. If anyone has a better idea of how we can do this, please let me know. howcheng {chat} 01:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * One possible solution is to create Picture of the day/February 1, 2007 using, but all this really does is create a page that exists only serve as a link target. Kind of sucks, but I still like that better than transcluding the POTD blurb on the image description page. howcheng  {chat} 03:13, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Including the blurb in the template is what is done on Commons (I think). Alternatively link to the relevant archive page. ed g2s &bull; talk 06:03, 9 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I came up with pictureoftheday and the sub-template POTDlink which creates a link to either the POTD blurb page if it exists or the archive page if it doesn't. Eventually I may go back and replace all instances of picture of the day with the new one, but it will take some effort to deal with the old PsOTD which were just on archive pages (and I created picture of the day before was implemented). I believe this works out the best -- the pages still look nice and now link to the right locations. howcheng  {chat} 07:33, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

POTD protected
Once ProtectionBot gets going (and I'm assuming that the RFA will succeed), will it really be necessary to create and protect the "protected version"? I'm thinking we can just link to POTD row and modify that so it doesn't include the subst anymore either.  howcheng  {chat} 23:51, 9 January 2007 (UTC)


 * I believe you are correct. Just use POTD row and ProtectionBot will detect and handle the changeovers in its components.  Please also provide an equivalent to Tomorrow's POTD row on Main Page/Tomorrow as this will allow the protection to occur in advance of when it appears on the Main Page proper.  Dragons flight 00:03, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

With the protected versions, you only need to protect one template, instead of four or five. ed g2s &bull; talk 14:57, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Well... if you don't protect the sub-templates then they could be vandalized for the various formats/displays other than the Main page. Or even theoretically vandalized just before being substituted onto the protected version - though that would probably be noticed unless it was subtle. I'd really strongly recommend a style format rather than these sub-templates... that would also be only one page to protect, and not have to be subst'd each day. It really would just be easier to maintain and take up alot fewer pages/transclusions. --CBD 15:15, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, but having the various subtemplates makes it possible to have custom layouts, which people have been asking for (see a number of discussions above and in the archive). I realize that with the protected version, only one page has to be protected, but if ProtectionBot is working properly, then it's not a problem to have to deal with the rest and that makes one LESS thing for admins to do to prep for the POTD's appearance on the Main Page.  howcheng  {chat} 16:43, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * The method I'm suggesting would also allow custom layouts... because it works exactly the same way except for setting the 'variable' values into parameters instead of sub-templates. If people are set on creating five new templates every day and then manually substituting those onto a sixth... ok, but I really think it would make more sense to just have the one new template per day and no manual substitution required. --CBD 18:00, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I'm not quite getting your concept. Can you give an example of how you would transclude the template?  howcheng  {chat} 18:19, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * See . That sets the 'image', 'caption', et cetera for the day as parameters which are then passed to a formatting template. The newly installed system works exactly the same way except that it reads the 'image', 'caption', et cetera into the formatting template from sub-templates. If I wanted to do a different format I'd use a template call like ... which would then pass all the appropriate values to . Parameters set up front rather than sub-templates called on the back end... otherwise exactly the same logic. You'd have one template per output format (exactly as you do now) and one template per day instead of five... as demonstrated by . --CBD 19:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I see what you mean. However, you'd only end up having a set of pre-defined layouts. I'm not a fan of creating a ton of templates for every POTD, but it gives users a lot more flexibility to incorporate the POTD into custom layouts. See ed g2s' user page for example.  howcheng  {chat} 06:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * No, give me some credit for having thought about this. The same results you describe could be achieved by creating a 'pre-defined layout' which just returns the 'image' parameter (i.e. and nothing else), one which just returns the caption parameter, et cetera. Then you could call those layouts to do the same 'mix and match' style as on Ed g2s' user page. The difference being that you'd have one template per variable... instead of one template per variable per day as currently. There is nothing which is done with the newly implemented system which could not be done with the layout I'm proposing... it would just be done with alot fewer templates and manual work. --CBD 10:56, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, OK I'm game. Want to set it up?  howcheng  {chat} 00:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I did so for January 1 thru 15. I also modified the, , , , et cetera templates so that they would accept 'input' from either parameters or sub-templates. So, now if you do you will get the default 'POTD row' format for the current day using the 'parameter method'... or [[Image:|75px]] would give you a thumbnail of just the image for January 14th. Note that the January 8 (animated) and January 12 (wide) main page 'protected' versions did not use the standard 'POTD row' format and thus I haven't duplicated them. Presumably there are either existing formats for those styles or manual setup of the page... either of which could be done in the same way with the 'parameter based' system. The essential (only) difference here is 15 days = 15 templates for 'variables' rather than 75 templates for 'variables'. Everything else works exactly the same... to the extent that I was actually able to just adjust the existing format templates to accept either methodology. --CBD 01:49, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * So the only one to be replaced is pic of the day. I created a POTD default for testing and I will probably just move pic of the day to the latter to keep it working for everyone. I'll give it a closer look later tonight but it all looks good to me so far. As for the "wide" versions, ed g2s was able to utilize to good use there, so I'm sure that can be worked out. Nice work!  howcheng   {chat} 03:18, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * People can vandalise a lot of quite high visibility templates, but we don't protect them all. The Main Page ones obviously have to be protected, but I don't see any reason why the others need to be. ed g2s &bull; talk 16:56, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
 * True, but one of the reasons you've implemented this is so that any changes only need to be made in one location, correct? It seems to me that having to update POTD protected as well as POTD caption (for example) kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?  howcheng  {chat} 06:58, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It's an unavoidable nuisance, yes, but unless we protect everything, we will always have to have two versions (protected/unprotected). The old system required 4 or 5 updates each time a change was made, and the need for each update was the reason why you couldn't develop new template styles. The new system requires just 1 update (using a copy and paste subst), and that will never increase, no matter how many more styles are added. ed g2s &bull; talk 03:05, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Re:ProtectionBot, see the RFA for what happened. While I'm here, and before I forget, I recently looked through the alternative main pages (not sure how many people use those) and saw that that some of the designs at Main Page alternatives are now broken as far as PotD goes. Does anyone have the time to go in and fix them? Carcharoth 12:03, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed.  howcheng  {chat} 17:05, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I think there is one more: Main Page alternative (tomorrow+today). Carcharoth 20:09, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * D'oh, how'd I miss that? This is done now.  howcheng  {chat} 00:41, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks again. Might be a separate issue, but the picture isn't displaying for Main Page/Tomorrow or the one you just fixed, and isn't in Template:POTD protected/2007-01-13 either. Not sure what's going on, as I can see the picture elsewhere. Carcharoth 08:12, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Seems OK on a different computer. Strange. Carcharoth 09:35, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

RSS feed broken
Why has the feed for this picture of the day broken? I received two Deleted Page posts in my reader for the last two days. Is it because of the new system, if so can I get new link? Jack 02:07, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Sounds likely. How does one even get the RSS feed?  howcheng  {chat} 04:52, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I figured it out. Discussion moved to User talk:Skagedal.  howcheng  {chat} 05:24, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

CBD's POTD method
Decided to start a new section for this discussion. I was able to modify POTD row to do a different layout for a wider image (I also had to change the image size parameters from 250x250 to just numbers otherwise breaks), but there is one thing I couldn't figure out and that is how to have a different image appear, which is necessary for the Main Page when we have an animated POTD. Perhaps a staticimage parameter or something. Or perhaps continuing to make the POTD protected page via subst so we can fewer things to protect as per ed g2s' system (plus it allows for more custom tinkering like the static image and the "View the animation" link -- but I might be able to take advantage of #ifexists for that) I was also wondering how to do different sizes on the different templates (POTD row usually takes a smaller size ... 250 instead of 300 for landscape orientation and 160 instead of 250 for portrait), but I think I can use #ifexpr to do that as well. As the one writing the POTD blurbs I'd be happier with this system so I don't have a whole ton of pages clogging up my watchlist, but I'm not totally convinced this is the way to go yet.  howcheng  {chat} 04:03, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I modified some of the templates to accept more parameters, namely rowsize and colsize for the row and column versions respectively (can be left blank). Then I went and created the rest for January. There's a test version in my userspace at User:Howcheng/Picture of the day/January 2007. Not sure if we still need POTD protected ... we could potentially leave POTD row permanently protected since that's the template always appearing on the Main Page. Change that one to and it becomes auto-updating. After using it for a little bit, I have to say I really like this method.  howcheng   {chat} 08:01, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I think the version that appeared on the Main Page should be permanently protected as a record of what appeared that day. There are other ways of finding this out, but this seems the simplest. Compare with what happens with the day's featured article blurb. OTOH, if people using this version want to use it elsewhere, that could be a problem. Carcharoth 08:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * For the 'non standard' formats, other than 'POTD row' used for most, there are basically two options;
 * Include additional parameters and conditional logic in a single formatting template to display all permutations used on the Main Page. Howcheng did this above for the wider images and similar adjustments could be made to handle static images for the animated items. If we went this route I would suggest leaving the 'POTD row' template for just the standard 'row' style and have a separate 'POTD Main Page' template which could handle all the different permutations. The drawback of this method would be that if we introduced new formats for display on the Main Page the single template would get more complex. Benefits would be that you'd have to protect 'POTD Main Page' and the 'POTD/Y-m-d' template for each day (which the new 'Main Page cascade' feature should do automatically) and that's it.
 * Have another page for each day onto which 'POTD/Y-m-d' is transcluded or substituted. The existing 'POTD protected/Y-m-d' templates could be used for this as they serve that function currently. Benefits are that you could transclude different formats as appropriate for the day or even substitute the template and then manually adjust it to a unique format. Drawback would be that you would need to protect 'POTD protected/Y-m-d', 'POTD/Y-m-d', and the appropriate format template(s). You could theoretically remove the need to protect the 'POTD/Y-m-d' and format templates by substituting them onto 'POTD protected/Y-m-d' every day (exactly as per the current system), but that would take about the same effort as just protecting the extra template each day.
 * Which of these would be better likely depends on how many different formats are going to be displayed on the Main Page. If it changes all the time then the second option allows greater flexibility in formatting... but if it is consistently one of three or four styles then the first option is much easier to maintain. Either way you'd have a protected copy of the POTD for each day available for the archives. --CBD 10:57, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Animation disconnect in archives
If I view Template:POTD protected/2007-01-08 I get the static image that was on the Main Page on January 8th. However, if I then click the link to 'view the animation' it takes me to a page for any animation available today. Since there isn't an animation today I just get a message to that effect, but if there were then I'd get an animation of something completely different than the static image. Would it make sense to create 'dated' animated versions so that they would remain linked in the archives? Alternatively, after images come off the main page we could replace the static version with the animated version... though that has the same 'page loading' issues that led to the static versions in the first place. This is also relevant for how images will be displayed on WP:FC. --CBD 11:08, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
 * It turns out that there are 'dated' animation pages, so I just updated the link on the static date page to call the corresponding animated date page rather than a 'today' page. If future animations use a similar link then the connection should be maintained for archival use. --CBD 11:15, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Commons POTY
The vote for Commons' Picture of the Year is going to be starting soon, and disucssion is curently being held at: commons:Commons_talk:Picture of the Year/2006. Please see that page for more information. Related to that, would there be any desire to supplement our POTD with the POTY (for a day) once chosen? — xaosflux  Talk  05:52, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

April Fool's Main Page 2007
April Fool's Main Page 2007 project affects all five changeable sections on the mainpage. To have an April Fool's featured picture appear on the mainpage on April 1st, some of the Today's featured picture mainpage rules may need to be bent. Thus, the project may need the approval and agreed upon cooperation from those running the Today's featured picture main page section. If would be great if at least one of the Today's featured picture administrators agreed to be a point person for the Today's featured picture aspect of the April Fool's Main Page 2007 project. Mostly, this would involve deciding which Today's featured picture mainpage rules could be bent, reviewing proposed Today's featured picture mainpage content to ensure it meets Today's featured picture mainpage requirements, and ensuring that this content made its way to the mainpage on April 1st. Please respond here. Thanks. -- Jreferee 18:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, this discussion has been taking place at Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates However, I'm the one who schedules the PsOTD, so I'll be happy to be "point man" for this.  howcheng  {chat} 19:14, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
 * As the one who schedules the PsOTD, you are the right person for the position. Thank you for volunteering.  Also, I'm glad to see there is discussion on the AF featured picture at Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates  Eventually, all this will be under one approved Wikipedia project, which SteveBaker is working on. -- Jreferee 00:54, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The Cache Questions.
Hi, First time editing a wiki. Please excuse any guidelines i haven't followed.

Wanted to throw up a suggestion. Perhaps the main page can have a META tag whereby the page is not saved into the browsers cashe. (a nocache tag?) That way people who have bookmarked it wont see the same page again.

Best Regards —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 61.16.134.162 (talk) 05:24, 24 January 2007 (UTC).


 * I'm not seeing the same page again. Maybe your browsersettings are the problem. Which one are you using? --Dschwen(A) 08:31, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Image:The_photographer_new.jpg
''It is uncertain whether the man is walking towards the camera or away from it. Image taken in São Martinho do Porto,'' Unless this man has backwards feet he is clearly walking to the camera (Gnevin 00:19, 28 January 2007 (UTC))

Template Troubles
It says, "protect with {{subst:somethingsomething, but it doesn't have end braces. What's wrong? { Slash -|- Talk } 03:43, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Nothing's wrong; that's deliberate. The closing braces don't appear until the very end, after all the template parameters. If you follow that "create protected version" link, you can see what I mean.  howcheng  {chat} 21:47, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

POTD scheduling guidelines
Due to a general increase in interest in writing the POTD by a number of different Wikipedians, I've created the POTD scheduling guidelines. Comments/updates are appreciated.  howcheng  {chat} 01:10, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Main page talk discussion about featured pictures
Not sure where to leave this note, so leaving it here and at Wikipedia talk:Featured picture candidates. There is a discussion at Talk:Main Page about suitability of some pictures - kind of an attempt to prepare a response in case there is any reaction to the forthcoming eye surgery picture, and the later 'hawk eating vole' picture. Input over there would be appreciated, or pop over there and ask people to bring the discussion somewhere over here instead. Thanks. Carcharoth 21:51, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

Error in Picture of the Day 16th April
Currently captions states

Leonardo da Vinci's cartoon The Virgin and Child with St Anne and St John the Baptist combines two themes popular in Florentine painting of the 15th century: the Virgin and Child with St John the Baptist and the Virgin and Child with St Anne. St Anne's enigmatic gesture of pointing her index figure towards the heavens recurs in two of Leonardo's last paintings, his St John the Baptist and his Bacchus, and is regarded as the quintessential Leonardesque gesture. It currently hangs in the National Gallery in London.

Note this segment "... enigmatic gesture of pointing her index figure towards..."

It should be finger not figure as in

"...enigmatic gesture of pointing her index finger towards..." 24.141.111.122 11:42, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

June
Why are the june featured pictures all messed up ? Bewareofdog 00:37, 13 May 2007 (UTC)

Animation
The current PotD, Image:Translational motion.gif is extremely distracting; it may well cause problems for users with cognitive disabilities. It appears to breach WAI-WCAG Web Content Accessibility Guidelines. Can it be replaced ASAP, and can we have an agreement to only use still images for PotD in future? Thank you. Andy Mabbett 23:20, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but can you elaborate further? I don't exactly get what you mean here.  howcheng  {chat} 00:23, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * As can be read in the WCAG's guideline 7.3: "Until user agents allow users to freeze moving content, avoid movement in pages." Do you know if current browsers can be configured to show an animated gif as only a still image? --surue&ntilde;a 09:22, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Not to my knowledge, but did you notice that we put a still image on the Main Page with a big "View the animation" link? So nobody is forced to see the animation if they don't want to. Animated images in articles can also be thumbnailed with a still image using the syntax [[Image:Example.gif|thumb=Thumbnail.png]], but that's up to the article's editors. If you want to propose a general ban on animated images, I doubt that will happen, but maybe you could propose a guideline to always use still images for thumbnails in articles. I would bring that up at Village pump (proposals).  howcheng  {chat} 16:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Pages which transcluded that picture had the animated version. I will do as you suggest. Andy Mabbett 19:49, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Repetition
There seems to be a lot of similar format photographs as POTD this month - i.e. close-up photos of small insects/animals/plants taken at macro level with a blurry background. Most of these are by the same user. I'm not disputing the quality of these pictures, but surely there is a wide variety of featured photographs and diagrams that could be drawn from. – Tivedshambo (talk) 05:41, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Yes, this is a prolific time for Fir0002 who has a whopping 11 PsOTD this month. The rule for POTD selection is roughly FIFO. Usually this gets a rather wide variety of topics, but Fir0002 happened to have just gotten out of school for the year (he's in Australia and most of these were promoted in January), so he got busy with his camera, which is why we have a slew of his photos. It's the only real drawback to rotation system, but it happens very rarely, so we live with it.  howcheng  {chat} 06:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

POTD from commons
I made a template in my own namespace for the POTD from Commons. Would it be a good idea to make this a public template and maybe even add it somewhere to this (project page) page? Since I'm the only one using it I didn't bother to put the wikilinks in the captions, but that can easily be done ofcourse. F r e e style 11:02, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Wow, that looks like a rather convoluted template. I assume you have to edit it each month to put the right pictures and captions in, yes? If you are willing to keep this up, I certainly don't have any objections.  howcheng  {chat} 17:01, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed, the captions and list of images has to be added manually, but fortunately that is a very easy cut-and-paste routine because I also made this page and this page on Commons with the automatically generated lists (sourcecode) for both. I'm not a native English speaker. Wiktionary says that convoluted means 'unnecessarily complex', is that right? And if so, you mean that it should be less complicated? F r e e style  18:07, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmm, I was unaware of that. I actually just meant, "very complicated".  howcheng  {chat} 00:16, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Ah, lol... [[image:Face-grin.svg|25px]], I tried. F r e e style  09:52, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Pecans
"A path of unshelled pecans makes its way through a host of shelled ones." Surely this should be: "A path of shelled pecans makes its way through a host of unshelled ones." - Nigosh 14:58, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Eye diagram imagemap
POTD/2007-07-12 would be much better served with the image map version of the image:

I don't know if there's a template that's freer with how the image is represented to do it, or does one need to be made? —Pengo 00:01, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, I was planning to do that for the main page. It won't work on the regular POTD templates, but the one on the Main Page will subst'ed so I can mess with the syntax better. If we end up having more image maps as FPs, it may behoove me to futz with the POTD template to have it use an image map instead.  howcheng  {chat} 06:19, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * As for POTD/2007-07-12, we should put the 30 labels in a list in the caption. I am not sure how it should be formatted so it looks reasonably presentable. Zzyzx11 (Talk) 07:17, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Would anyone have time to look at Template talk:POTD/2007-07-12? Is there any way to get stub articles written on central retinal vein and bulbar sheath? Not essential, but it would be nice. Where could I ask for people to write the stubs? Carcharoth 09:47, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Talk:Eye?  howcheng  {chat} 20:20, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
 * I've now tried there as well. Carcharoth 21:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at Template:POTD protected/2007-07-12 and comparing it to Template:POTD/2007-07-12. The former has "hover and click" instructions, but I believe this breaks accessibility for those with screen readers, and breaks several other "usability" rules. Is it not possible to have a combination of the "hover and click" one and the one with the list? I personally find the one with the list preferable to the hover and click, as you then have a whole list of names to scan. Also, there are still two redlinks, so hovering and clicking won't help there. ie. Could someone please put the list in the protected template? Carcharoth 21:56, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

No-text version
The no-text version of POTD --  -- has text. Is there anyway I can make the POTD appear on my user page without text? --  Jreferee  (Talk) 04:20, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Sure -- just use the custom mix-and-match templates. For the POTD with absolutely no text whatsoever (image only), [[Image:|300x300px]] . The available configurations are listed all at WP:POTD.  howcheng  {chat} 06:50, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I put it on my talk page. Looks great! --  Jreferee  (Talk) 23:24, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Future templates to be fixed
I'm sure they will be fixed in good time anyway, but I was browsing through the PotD queue, and I thought I'd point out some templates that need fixing in some way. Template:POTD/2007-07-19 (seems to have been created by someone experimenting, see Special:Contributions/Brencaivan), Template:POTD/2007-07-20 and Picture of the day/October 2007 - both created by the same user, see Special:Contributions/Sar2jec. That user seems to have been trying to feature one of the pics used in Hohenzollern Redoubt. In future, what is the best way to check if a picture really has been chosen to be featured, or whether someone is creating pages in advance outside the system (as was happening here)? Carcharoth 09:30, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Hmmm... it would require someone who's familiar with what the FPs are. Any of the FPC regulars should be able to tell if pictures are legitimately featured or not. I also have a template that I use to notify people who create non-approved PsOTD: User:Howcheng/POTD scheduling.  howcheng  {chat} 16:13, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
 * And both those users have been informed (by different people) about the correct process. I also see that the empty PotD template was deleted, so that can just be recreated when needed. Thanks. Is there a queue somewhere of featured pictures waiting to go on the main page, that I could check in future? Carcharoth 10:29, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
 * WP:FPT has the queue in reverse order, but animations that can't be resized are at the bottom.  howcheng  {chat} 16:00, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion for September 17
May I recommend that the POTD for September 17, 2007 be designated as Image:Constitution Pg1of4 AC.jpg (the recently FP-promoted image of the first page of the U.S. Constitution)? September 17 is observed as Constitution Day in the United States. Spikebrennan 20:56, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Aug. 8: GISP2 ice core


Worst POTD ever. &larr;BenB4 10:03, 8 August 2007 (UTC)

Question
I have a question on how you were able to get a customizable version of POTD. I'm trying to do the same for RPOTD (which is a spinoff of POTD for non-featured pictures). I've been looking at the code and attempting to duplicate it, but I couldn't get it to work. Did I overlook something? Help with this would be greatly appreciated. --​​ ​​D ​​tbohrer​​​ ​talk•contribs 16:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * The relevant templates are:
 * POTD default - normal layout
 * POTD condensed - no-text layout
 * POTD column - "column" layout
 * POTD row - "row" layout (used on Main Page)
 * POTD image - image name only
 * POTD title - title only
 * POTD caption - caption only
 * POTD credit - credit only
 * The main POTD template POTD/2024-July- is really another template call to one of the above, POTD default if you don't supply a parameter. So if you want just the image name, for example, you use . Does that make sense?  howcheng  {chat} 17:59, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Got it. Thanks. --​​ ​​D ​​tbohrer​​​ ​talk•contribs 18:34, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

POTD credits
A related discussion is taking place at Talk:Main Page (basically, it's /Archive1 all over again).  howcheng  {chat} 07:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

last minute request: Sunday 23 September's POTD
Hi. Washington National Cathedral is currently scheduled to be the featured POTD tomorrow, Sunday 23 September 2007. By a curious coincidence, Washington National Cathedral was founded September 29 1907, making its 100th anniversary about week away. Would it be possible to postpone its POTD status for a week to allow a happy coincidence? (Friday's picture was a Yom Kippur one, so it looks to me like a little fudging hasn't been unknown in the past.) Many thanks, Doops | talk 23:04, 22 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Arg, it's too late for that. If only I'd known!  howcheng  {chat} 02:21, 23 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Yeah, as you can see it only occurred to me about an hour ahead of time. :( Doops | talk 02:51, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day/Michelle Merkin POTD
In case anyone doesn't know, there is a debate about the Michelle Merkin POTD going on at the moment. See Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day/Michelle Merkin POTD. - Ta bu shi da yu 11:39, 3 November 2007 (UTC)