Template:POTD
.jpg?lang=en)
Usage
Displays the English Wikipedia's current picture of the day (POTD) in a box of no more than 600 pixels wide, without the blurb (explanatory text), for use on user pages. To always display the current day's POTD, use {{POTD}}; to permanently feature a particular day's POTD, use {{POTD|date=[date]}}, where the [date] parameter can be given in any valid format.
It is also possible to create your own custom POTD layouts, in case the already-existing versions will not look good within your user page design. Mix and match the following components to make your own. This system will only work for POTDs selected beginning January 1, 2007. Be sure to replace [date] with an appropriate date value. For a dynamically updating version, use {{#time:Y-m-d}} (example: {{POTD/{{#time:Y-m-d}}|image}}).
| Template | Description | Renders as |
|---|---|---|
{{POTD/[date]|image}} |
The name of the image, without the File: prefix |
Oil on Canvas Portrait of Dred Scott (cropped).jpg |
{{POTD/[date]|size}} |
The size of the image, without the trailing px |
350 |
{{POTD/[date]|caption}} |
The image caption (blurb) | Dred Scott (c. 1799 – 1858) was an enslaved African American who, along with his wife, Harriet Robinson Scott, unsuccessfully sued for the freedom of themselves and their two daughters, Eliza and Lizzie, in the 1857 legal case Dred Scott v. Sandford. The Scotts claimed that they should be granted freedom because Dred had lived for four years in Illinois and the Wisconsin Territory, where slavery was illegal, and laws in those jurisdictions said that slave holders gave up their rights to slaves if they stayed for an extended period. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled against Scott in a landmark decision that held the Constitution did not extend American citizenship to people of black African descent, and therefore they could not enjoy the rights and privileges that the Constitution conferred upon American citizens. The Dred Scott decision is widely considered the worst in the Supreme Court's history, being widely denounced for its overt racism, judicial activism, poor legal reasoning, and crucial role in the events that led to the American Civil War four years later. The ruling was later superseded by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which abolished slavery, in 1865, followed by the Fourteenth Amendment, whose first section guaranteed birthright citizenship for "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof", in 1868. This posthumous oil-on-canvas portrait of Scott was painted by Louis Schultze, after an 1857 photograph by John H. Fitzgibbon, and now hangs in the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis. |
{{POTD/[date]|title}} |
A link to the article the image represents | Dred Scott |
{{POTD/[date]|texttitle}} |
A linkless short caption, also useful as an alt attribute | Dred Scott |
{{POTD/[date]|credit}} |
The credit line of the image, including the genre (e.g. photograph, painting) | Painting credit: Louis Schultze, after John H. Fitzgibbon |
There are two additional predefined layouts:
{{POTD/{{#time:Y-m-d}}|column}}: 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.{{POTD/{{#time:Y-m-d}}|row}}: 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 POTD is {{POTD/2025-06-19|image}}. 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: {{Pic of the day|date=2025-06-19}} or {{POTD|date=2025-06-19}}. Again, this system will only work for POTDs selected beginning January 1, 2007.