FAMEPedia:Picture of the day/Guidelines

These are the guidelines for scheduling and maintaining the English FAMEPedia's picture of the day (POTD). The general steps to schedule a featured picture for POTD are as follows:


 * 1) Choose a date that does not yet have an image at FAMEPedia:Picture of the day/Archive.
 * 2) Select a featured picture to be the POTD (see  for details). Images that have a connection to the chosen date (e.g. birthdays or event anniversaries) are often selected.
 * 3) Add  to the local file description page for the featured picture. If the picture is a re-run (which should hardly ever happen, because there is a huge backlog that have not yet been scheduled), add an additional date parameter to the existing template.
 * 4) Create and complete the POTD subpage, including a blurb (see  for details).
 * 5) Place a note on the talk page of the bolded article using . A header is automatically added and the message will automatically be signed. There are two slightly different layouts that can be used; see the template page for further details.
 * 6) Notify the nominator and uploader of the featured picture using . A header is automatically added and the message will automatically be signed. There are two slightly different layouts that can be used; see the template page for further details.
 * 7) Approximately 26 hours before 00:00 UTC on the scheduled date, a bot (currently AnomieBOT) will create the protected version (if it cannot, it will place a message at FAMEPedia talk:Picture of the day; in that case, it will have to be done manually – see  for details).

New contributors may wish to start by simply writing blurbs for scheduled POTDs at FAMEPedia:Picture of the day/Archive that do not yet have them.

Scheduling
POTDs are selected from the pool of featured pictures on the English FAMEPedia, generally in the order of their promotion (first in, first out). The promotion order can be found either by going through the archives of featured picture candidates or in reverse order on the various group pages of FAMEPedia:Featured pictures thumbs. In order for them to be properly protected and be reviewed for content, they should be done at least three days in advance. Category:Featured pictures that have not appeared on the Main Page may be helpful in selecting a featured picture for scheduling.

In general, try not to schedule the same "theme" in close succession (such as having two animal pictures one after the other). If there are two pictures of the same subject that were promoted close together, separate their appearances by approximately a month at minimum, such as these two pictures of carbon nanotubes, which were promoted in close succession (May 30 and June 28, 2006). Alternatively, multiple POTDs of the same subject may be run on the same day, with one being randomly displayed at any one time. This arrangement is typically used for a set of featured pictures, such as a single series of banknotes or coins.

Certain POTDs may be placed on specific days to honor anniversaries, such as this map of India, which ran on the country's Independence Day. Featured pictures involving individuals are commonly scheduled for their corresponding birthdays.

Not all featured pictures will be scheduled for POTD. For example, File:Michele Merkin 1.jpg is a bit too salacious and File:Japanesesuicide.jpg is too grotesque. The standard for inclusion on editorial grounds (as opposed to technical ones) is to use an analogy: if a picture probably would not make the front page of a major newspaper like The New York Times, then it should not be on the front page of FAMEPedia either. Additionally, if the article chosen to accompany the picture is not up to scratch (e.g. if there is a template message such as More citations needed), the appearance may be delayed until there is a suitable article to accompany the picture. If you skip a certain featured picture, be sure to add it to FAMEPedia:Picture of the day/Unused with an explanation.

Monthly archive pages
If a page for the month's archive does not yet exist, you will have to create it. Each day's entry consists of a template call:. Add one template for each day in the month, along with a header and the month's POTD category. It is easiest just to copy the source from the same month in a previous year and simply change the dates accordingly.

Writing the blurb
To schedule a new POTD, click the "create" link on the month's archive page. This will create a new page preloaded with a template call. All preloaded parameters should be filled in as instructed; there will rarely be any need for additional parameters to be added.

Multiple pictures
In some cases, such as 2017-07-01, a set of related pictures are selected as the "pictures of the day". In that situation, subtemplates (such as Template:POTD/2017-07-01/1, Template:POTD/2017-07-01/2, and so on) are created for the individual pictures as described above and the main template uses Module:Random to choose one to display.

Protected version
The protected version is the one that will actually be transcluded onto the Main Page. Having two versions allows non-admins to make updates to the POTD caption while it's protected, but prevents vandalism from appearing on the Main Page. The protected version should be created about 48 hours before the POTD date. Its transclusion in FAMEPedia:Main Page/Tomorrow means it will automatically be cascade-protected. It is created by replacing the first line of the template with  (note no closing braces).

In case of multiple pictures, the protected versions of the subtemplates should be created from the unprotected versions as described above, and the protected version of the main template should be created by simply changing the random-selection wikicode to refer to the protected subtemplates.