Wikivoyage talk:Destination of the month candidates/Banners

Selection
I don't want us to get bogged down in selection. So I propose we use a very simple solution where the person actually updating the Main Page at the time of feature is the one to read the discussion and make their best judgement regarding which was the closest to being the favorite banner. --Peter Talk 17:13, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
 * I think that's definitely the way to go - we need speed! :) --Nick (talk) 10:18, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Archiving old Banner discussions?
Are we going to do this once the articles are placed on the Main Page, much as we do with featured article nominations? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:33, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I think we are going to delete the banners we don't use, and possibly even the ones we do use (unless we are going to start using the banner-style TOC that Shaun is working on), so there won't be too much to archive. --Peter Talk 02:50, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * I hadn't seen that TOC - that is rather nice! --Nick (talk) 10:19, 27 March 2013 (UTC)


 * Those banners would be rather handy for the banner-style TOC. They'd need to be much shorter (height-wise), but that's an easy cropping job. I'm hoping to have more news on the TOC soon. -Shaundd (talk) 02:31, 28 March 2013 (UTC)


 * This page is getting pretty crowded. Barring any objections, I'm going to go ahead and delete the unused banners for Guadalajara, the South Pole, and Narnia, and create an archive to store the one we do use pending a decision on whether or not we're going to delete those too. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:55, 10 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Why don't we just archive all of them until we get going with the banner TOC, so we'll have a slightly larger pool of stuff to work with in choosing the TOC banners. The dimensions will be a little different, so what looks good in these banners might not be perfect for a TOC. --Peter Talk 13:19, 10 April 2013 (UTC)

Non-free content
I'm having a bit of trouble finding a suitable banner for Driving in Australia on Wikimedia Commons. However, I found some excellent images on a different site, which contains a disclaimer that reads:

"All wallpapers and backgrounds found here are believed to be in the 'public domain'. All of the images displayed are of unknown origin. We do not intend to infringe any legitimate intellectual right, artistic rights or copyright. If you are the rightful owner of any of the pictures/wallpapers posted here, and you do not want it to be displayed or if you require a suitable credit, then please contact us and we will immediately do whatever is needed either for the image to be removed or provide credit where it is due. All the content of this site are free of charge and therefore we do not gain any financial benefit from the display or downloads of any images/wallpaper."

Am I correct in assuming that the disclaimer is not sufficient to square the use of images from this site with our non-free images policy? I don't think our policy would permit it, but I'd love to be told I'm wrong because these images are really spectacular. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:12, 9 April 2013 (UTC)


 * It is not sufficient. If the images are of "unknown origin", where did this web site get them?  Answer: They swiped 'em from somewhere, and don't care to keep track of where they got them from, or who made them in the first place.  So they slap a lame "not our fault, we just found 'em laying around on the web" disclaimer to try to cover their asses, while freely pirating other people's hard work.  Even if they were legitimately PD, Commons would want to know who took the photo (and when) so that later editors can verify the PD claim.  LtPowers (talk) 01:24, 9 April 2013 (UTC)

Hall of 'Fame'
Would it be worth pulling out some the (admittedly very few) banners that we've done as examples of good banners - eg area of plain colour for text, vivid colour etc...? --Nick (talk) 18:54, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I'd say yes. LtPowers (talk) 23:16, 11 April 2013 (UTC)

Ok - now the painstaking process of deciding which! I think 5 is probably the maximum number of images we'd want, and, if possible, it would be nice if they demonstrated different desirable aspects. Here then is every banner image ever used: (I think!)

Let's try and keep this quick and stress-free: hopefully we'll be able to come up with a list in the next few days. --Nick (talk) 23:38, 11 April 2013 (UTC)
 * 1, 2, and 10 are my favorites, but I think 9 is an important illustration as well because you can't always get images like 1, 2, and 10. =)  LtPowers (talk) 00:32, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * I like 1, 3/5 (aren't those the same picture?), and 12, with 1 being at the top of the pack. I don't think I've ever seen a photo of Cinderella's Castle like that - and what a perfect fit for a left-aligned blurb! -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 01:04, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Ooops, you're right! I've removed it but kept the numbers the same so your responses still make sense. :) --Nick (talk) 01:10, 12 April 2013 (UTC)
 * Thanks Lt and Andre for your views. As we haven't had an overwhelming response, I'll choose 5 from the ones you've selected between you if that's ok? (I'm an evil autocrat...) :) --Nick (talk) 23:03, 16 April 2013 (UTC)

New Main Page?
What's the state of affairs on the new Main Page that Nick and others had been tinkering with? Has progress stalled, have we given up on the idea, or do we have a green light and if so, when is the new design supposed to be implemented?

I'm given to understand that its design would entail abandoning the banner images we currently use to represent featured articles, and being that I've designed banners for features as far in the future as February 2014, I'd really like to know if it's worthwhile to continue doing so (or, alternatively, if it's time to start remaking images in the new format for future destinations that already have banners).

-- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 05:09, 10 December 2013 (UTC)


 * It seems to be anyone's guess. The last discussion was Talk:Main Page. If you can interpret the state of discussion from that thread, you're a better man than I. Ikan Kekek (talk) 13:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Destination of the month candidates/Banners
Can someone with knowledge of such things tweak the CSS in the DotM banner coding so that destinations with long names don't overhang the right margin of the banner when right-justified? Please and thank you. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 22:18, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Regretfully, If I would still had admin privileges, I might able to fix it. I noticed Nick tried to fix it but couldn't able to. Nick, please try to do some more experiment and I'm sure you'll be able to fix it. --Saqib (talk) 17:00, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What is the desired behavior? The name could wrap, the box could be enlarged, or we could just change "Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park" to "Uluru-Kata Tjuta".  The CSS in question is the following:

.banner-box .name { font-size: 3em; white-space: nowrap; line-height: 1.2em; }
 * If you want it to wrap to a second line then remove the "white-space: nowrap", but it might be better to just use a shorter version of the article name. -- Ryan &bull; (talk) &bull; 17:30, 6 January 2014 (UTC)


 * When the text is left-justified, it fits on one line perfectly; what I'd like is for the same to be true when it's right-justified. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:52, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Something odd with the blurb text
Destination_of_the_month_candidates/Banners shows up like in the screenshot, with the text in the blurb so small that it's hardly legible without a microscope. After a few reloads it looked normal. But a few reloads later the text becomes tiny again. Anybody else having this problem? It looks like this both in Safari and Firefox. ϒpsilon (talk) 18:51, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * I can see a similar effect for certain window widths. The text shrinks with the width of my browser window until I get the image down to about 500px, at which point the text jumps in size before beginning to shrink again with further width reductions.
 * Also of note is that the text continues to change size even if the image width is maxed out (at 1125px). That seems odd.
 * Powers (talk) 20:06, 7 April 2014 (UTC)
 * AndreCarrotflower, are you (or anyone else viewing this page) also seeing the text in the blurb shrinking or is it just me and Powers? It's really annoying. ϒpsilon (talk) 04:56, 8 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, the same is happening with me. Strange. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 02:00, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

Uploading banner images locally
Why should all banner suggestions be uploaded locally?--GZWDer (talk) 10:36, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * As far as I'm aware, it's to prevent them from being overwritten or edited on Commons; we don't want this most public of images to be vandalised. --Nick talk 12:51, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Also to keep from overwhelming Commons with images not used anywhere, most of which are cropped from existing images only to fit our size requirements. Actually, I think we should be deleting images we don't use once one is selected, and then upload the one we do use to Commons (unless it's non-free).  Powers (talk) 18:02, 11 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Couldn't we implement a simple tool that lets us resize existing images to banner-size right at Wikivoyage? Something like facebook or other community/social sites have. It would save a lot of time and also data storage, as we'd just link to full-size images on Commons. I don't think it would be that complicated, though someone would need to be able to implement an existing solution. No idea who's actually programming here. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 09:46, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * Horst-schlaemma, you're missing the point here. Because banner images are so visible, and because such care needs to be taken to optimize the relationship between the text overlay and the image itself, we absolutely need these images to be under local control. If they're on Commons, resizing tool or not, there's nothing preventing the images from being deleted or reuploaded in a different form, and one of the most visible features of our Main Page from being altered without consensus, or even input, from the local community. --AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:11, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * That being the case, Powers' point about unused banners is a good one, because of the redundancy issue he cited as well as the simple fact that the archive is becoming huge and unwieldy. It already takes forever to load. Additionally, some banner images (for instance, many of the proposed banners for Buffalo as DotM) are not hosted on Commons at all, but were uploaded directly to Wikivoyage by their photographer. I would not object to these images (used as well as unused) being moved to Commons after they're retired from the Main Page. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 19:18, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * On second thought, I actually would prefer that we continue to host old banners locally as well, because even after their tenure on the Main Page is over they remain in use at Previous Destinations of the month, Previously Off the beaten path, and Previous Featured travel topics. I suppose it's fine to move old unused banners that aren't derived from images already on Commons, though. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 20:17, 14 September 2014 (UTC)
 * AndreCarrotflower, sorry I should have specified that I'm referring to article/destination banners, the regular ones for cities and regions. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 22:42, 14 September 2014 (UTC)

If the banners were on Commons, other language versions could also use them. I think we need someone here with the right buttons on Commons to lock the banners in question while they are showing on the main page. Globe-trotter (talk) 12:09, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * WP has traditionally moved front-page images onto the local wiki and locked them (a) because it was originally possible to override a Commons image by uploading a local image with the same name and (b) because any unexpected, undesired change to the image on Commons could have the effect of vandalising the main page item. That doesn't mean that the Commons versions had to be deleted, as far as I know. K7L (talk) 16:37, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * But that still doesn't address the problem of the continued use of banner images at Previous Destinations of the month, Previously Off the beaten path, and Previous Featured travel topics. Granted, the lesser visibility of those pages makes their integrity less important than that of the Main Page, but it's the same principle at work: those pages are intended as historical records of the banners we've used for previous featured destinations, and as such should not be subject to change by anyone outside our own local community. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 16:45, 16 September 2014 (UTC)


 * Hi, it's possible to protect Commons files from unauthorized changes. As it's done with e.g. some featured images. Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 08:20, 18 September 2014 (UTC)


 * That's a promising development, but I imagine the question of whether a particular image is protected is up to the administration at Commons. Are any of us Wikivoyage regulars also Commons admins, and can handle the task of protecting the files? If not, is Commons accustomed to handling protection requests of this nature from other wikis? If every time we want an image protected we have to jump through hoops, I'd be inclined to conclude that it doesn't do any harm or tax our resources too terribly to keep the images local. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 17:19, 18 September 2014 (UTC)
 * There are a few of us who are admins on both projects. Commons' protection policy states: "Upload protection might be used to prevent overwriting of files that are either heavily used across Wikimedia projects (e.g. template icons) or used in a dangerous location (e.g. wiki's main pages) in order to prevent vandalism. These protections might be indefinitely or temporary, for example only as long as a file is on a wiki's main page."  Protection can be requested as a routine matter at commons:Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/Blocks and protections.  Powers (talk) 01:12, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

A content note
Just a heads up for folks: the glacier-slow loading time for the extremely graphics-heavy banner archive page was really getting under my skin, so I split it up by year. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 23:53, 20 August 2015 (UTC)

Size guidance?
The first line of instructions says: "Please try to use banner dimensions of 1700 x 567" which doesn't even match the guidance in our Banner Expedition.

Given that Wikimedia now scales all banners for us, a banner size can be as large as it likes as long as it fits the 7:1 dimensions.

Can we remove this text? --Andrewssi2 (talk) 00:15, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * 7:1 banners look good at the top of articles, but less so at the Main Pages (for instance the blurb box would need to be radically shrunk). ϒpsilon (talk) 04:41, 8 October 2015 (UTC)


 * Please ignore my previous comment. I thought these were standard banners (I'm not so involved with DOTM) --Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:14, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Numbering banners for the discussion
In the discussions where there are more than some 4 banners to choose from, it would be useful to introduce numbering (like I experimentally and anarchistically did in case of Kyoto banner discussion). Obviously, the look of the banner is not EXACTLY like the one that will appear at the fron page, but I guess everybody can imagine... Do you see a problem with using numbering? Danapit (talk) 10:16, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * I think it's a good idea. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 14:05, 12 January 2016 (UTC)


 * Me too. Thanks for starting it. Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:03, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

Default banners?
Seeing that there are once again just a couple of days before we need a new banner to replace Christchurch with, I was wondering if it would be worth creating one or three (one each for DotM, OtBP and FTT) default banners, just like for articles that don't have custom banners. ϒpsilon (talk) 10:04, 27 December 2017 (UTC)


 * I got bogged down with other stuff but was planning on attending to the Pratunam banners either tonight or tomorrow. In general, though, I don't think it's the end of the world (nor is it unprecedented, though it hasn't happened recently) for us not to have a DotM banner ready a month ahead of time to be placed at dotm, so long as it is ready when it's time to put it on the Main Page. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 15:25, 27 December 2017 (UTC)


 * No problems, after all we only get to celebrate Christmas and New Year once a year, whereas Wikivoyage is here year-round :).
 * I just figured some kind of placeholder banners could be good to have just in case. ϒpsilon (talk) 17:17, 27 December 2017 (UTC)


 * Bringing this suggestion up once again, as I don't like making the Main Page banners but as of the last few months it looks like nobody else is willing to make them. Or we could start thinking about going back to the old Main Page layout (modified to accommodate FTT, perhaps a bit like the German Main Page?) without banners, just a photo and a blurb. It would make us look more like our sister Wikipedia and less like Wikitravel. Ypsilon (talk) 14:56, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * It would be a shame to stop using custom banners (he says, with no intention of taking up the mantel), but I think it would be a good idea to have some generic ones in reserve, just in case we run low on occasion. If it is indeed the case that no-one wants to produce banners anymore, then the German format (possibly with shorter blurbs) would be a better alternative.--ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 15:51, 11 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Bump. Anyone else got an opinion on this? --ThunderingTyphoons! (talk) 20:21, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I don't participate much in the featured article process, but I can't imagine using default banners on the Main Page. Shouldn't proposing an image to use as a banner be a part of the nomination for being featured? If the nomination proposes an image that's not great, (a) it's still better than a default, and (b) it is likely to spur other proposed images. The recent round of banner changes led by User:ויקיג'אנקי shows that there is interest in having good banners, and there are people willing to help. Ground Zero (talk) 21:10, 20 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I am not keen on default banners for normal use.
 * However we could have one (or three) default banners and modify Template:Banner so it used one of the defaults if the selected banner failed to load, like Template:Pagebanner. This would allow main page banners to be on commons without causing a major upset if one was deleted. I find it is much quicker to crop an image on commons using the crop tool, rather than downloading it, cropping offline and then uploading locally. AlasdairW (talk) 19:38, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Deciding on blurb text?
On the dotm page, there's a link to the dotm/banners page. However, on that page it says that the blurb is discussed here, but it seems to have hardly ever come up in discussion. Why is that? Did something change? --Comment by Selfie City  (talk about my contributions ) 19:47, 28 August 2018 (UTC)

Faulty link
The link in the DotM banners (including the one of Colonia) on the Main Page goes to Destination of the Month, a page that was previously deleted twice. I accidentally hit it and now there's an ugly redlink right on the Main Page. :(

Denver's banner also had that issue, but I fixed it – links from Main Page DotM banners should go to Previous Destinations of the month, just like the link in the OtBP banner goes to Previously Off the beaten path and the one in the FTT banner goes to Previous Featured travel topics. -- ϒψιλον (talk ) 10:48, 11 November 2018 (UTC)


 * I've fixed the link on the main page. —Granger (talk · contribs) 11:55, 11 November 2018 (UTC)

Layout
Can we manipulate the layout so that all banner candidates are in full size, not downsized because i is beside the table of contents? /Yvwv (talk) 18:39, 4 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The simplest way would be to add a pagebanner to the article, but this is slightly non-standard for Wikivoyage space pages. Does anybody object to adding a pagebanner? AlasdairW (talk) 23:19, 4 January 2022 (UTC)
 * No. --Comment by Selfie City (talk) (contributions) 12:27, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I have added a banner showing a 2016 calendar. This was choosen to avoid showing any location, but alternatives are welcome.AlasdairW (talk) 22:12, 5 January 2022 (UTC)
 * I'm also going to add a banner to the archives so they are all full size, anyone object? Tai123.123 (talk) 05:53, 13 January 2022 (UTC)