Template talk:Mainpage date

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Contents 1 Usage 2 See also 3 Historically adding this template 4 Versions 5 Adding diff?

[edit] Usage

{{mainpage date|February 27|2005}}

which produces:

Mainpage date appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on February 27, 2005.

[edit] See also

• {{Mainpage date to come}}

---

This is an excellent template. In order for article that will be soon appearing on the front page to have something similar, I created Template:Mainpage date to come, which is a slightly modified version of this template.

[edit] Historically adding this template

I've begun a little task for me to do - to go through the archive of all Main Page featured articles and add this template to the article's talk page. Records began on February 22, 2004, and so far I'm up to March 31, 2004. If I carry on at about one week's worth per day, it won't take too long to have all articles updated like this.

Main reason for doing this: when you look at a featured article (or its talk page) that has been on the Main Page, there is no way of telling it was featured there. Plus, it's a nice acknowledgement to all those who've worked on the article. --High^(Hopes)(+) 18:37, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

I enthusiastically agree and I really do thank you for doing the backlog. I started with August 2005 but didn't do the priors except for a couple of favorites. I'll pitch in as time permits. --hydnjo talk 19:18, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Versions

Aloan, your version makes Wikipedia:Today's featured article well, red. Can you get rid of that without starting an edit war here. Thanks, --hydnjo talk 23:24, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

• It works fine for me. The code is right. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-09-22 00:14

• How is it fine that Today's featured article within the template doesn't go anywhere (doesn't link to anything)? Aren't you seeing red?--hydnjo talk 01:55, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Check these and tell me if they show up red. They don't for me. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-09-22 02:03
    • Most of these are my edits before the template change and so they render just fine. I really don't care anymore about this, I realized the need for the template and Rick Block designed it. Play around all you want. --hydnjo talk 02:24, 22 September 2005 (UTC)
      • You don't understand what a template is. All those articles reference the current version of the template, whatever it may be. They don't reference previous versions. That's the point of a template, making mass changes to articles without having to go through one-by-one and changing them. Instead, you just change the template that they reference. — BRIAN0918 • 2005-09-22 04:04

• The original version of the template did not use the arguments for anything other than indicating the date (so "Month day" or "day Month" both worked just fine). With the recent changes, the first argument MUST be in "Month day" format. Not all references are of this form. The folks who changed the template might have caught this, but apparently didn't. I hope this isn't a big deal, but somebody should check all the references to make sure they conform to the newly required "Month day" format. My suggestion would be "he who changes things needs to clean up afterward". -- Rick Block (talk) 04:20, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

• • As discussed at User talk:ALoan, User talk:Hydnjo, and User talk:Rick Block, I think there are two issues:
    1. Ensuring that the date is properly wikified, so it displays according to user preferences. If the date is used on the right side of a pipe link, it is not formatted according to user preferencs.
    2. Linking to WP:TFA or the relevant sub-page. If the link to the subpage is kept, the template must be invoked as {{mainpage date|MONTH DAY|YEAR}} '''not''' {{mainpage date|DAY MONTH|YEAR}} to ensure that the subpage link works properly.

Personally, I think the first point is more important. As for the second, I can see the rationale for a link to the specific WP:TFA subpage, but I am not too concerned either way. -- ALoan (Talk) 10:00, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Adding diff?

How complicated would it be to add a parameter for a diff showing the before-and-after being-on-the-mainpage versions? Jkelly 02:05, 14 June 2006 (UTC)