Picture of the day

The picture of the day (POTD) is a section on the English Wikipedia's Main Page that is automatically updated every day with one or more featured pictures, accompanied by a blurb. Although it is generally scheduled and edited by a small group of regular editors, anyone can contribute. If you have concerns about today's or tomorrow's POTDs, please place a message at Wikipedia:Main Page/Errors. If you have concerns about other upcoming POTDs, consider either fixing it yourself or placing a message at Wikipedia talk:Picture of the day.

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Guidelines

* The picture must already be a featured picture. To nominate a picture to be featured, see Featured picture candidates.
* Featured pictures are currently selected in roughly the order in which they were promoted (i.e. a first in, first out order). See the category of featured pictures that have not appeared on the Main Page for this order. Exceptions are made for birthdays, anniversaries of events, national holidays or other occasions worth commemorating.
* Linked articles must be up to scratch – at a minimum, the article should not be a stub, and the image used must appear in the article.
* All facts mentioned in the blurb must be found in the target article, or in the description linked to the image itself (if it's a specific detail not relevant to the article topic).
* All facts used in the blurb must have a citation to a reliable source, either in the linked article or in the image description page.
* Not all featured pictures will appear as the picture of the day. Wikipedia:Picture of the day/Unused has a list of those that have been skipped.

Pictures of the day on your user page

You can insert the picture of the day on your user page or talk page by adding the text . It will be displayed in a box of no more than 600 pixels wide and will include the blurb associated with the picture. A version without text is also available via .

It is also possible to create your own custom POTD layouts, in case you do not wish to use the existing versions. Mix and match the following components to make your own. This system will only work for pictures of the day beginning January 1, 2007. Be sure to replace ate/code> with an appropriate date value. For a dynamically updating version, use (example: ).

There are two additional predefined layouts:
* : This has the image and caption above each other with no borders. Used on some of the Main Page alternatives and also suitable for user pages.
* : This has the image and caption encapsulated in (usually) a single table row. This is the version used on the current Main Page.

It is also possible to permanently feature a POTD for a selected day. Just add a specific value for the date you want. For example, today's picture of the day is . Likewise, you can use date parameters with the other templates as well. If you like the pre-made formats, you can use date parameters there as well, like this: or . Again, this system will only work for pictures of the day beginning January 1, 2007.


As a userbox

Random picture of the day

Use to display a randomly selected picture of the day.

also displays a randomly selected POTD, but without the header and footer.

As a thumbnail

When you want to display the picture of the day like an ordinary thumbnail, similar to , you can use . For instance, if you want a thumbnailed version, floated right, you can use .

Older pictures of the day

If you want to permanently include a POTD that was selected between November 1, 2004 and December 31, 2006, use the following: or . For example, .

Pictures of the day selected from May 2004 through October 2004 are only accessible in month-at-a-time archives (see below) and can only be placed on user pages by using standard image syntax.

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