Summary
Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge] | This template is used on approximately 141,000 pages. To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them. |
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This template should only be used on articles that have no citations or references at all. Don't add this template to articles that contain even one general reference, bare URL, or citation-containing footnote. A citation is any description of a reliable source that supports any of the article content. The format of the citation and the name of the section heading (e.g., ==External links==) are not what determines whether a link or citation is a source. |
Usage edit
{{Unreferenced|date=April 2024}} {{Unreferenced|find=World War II|find2=Mediterranean|date=April 2024}} When to use editYou should only add this template to articles that contain no citations or references of any kind.
Do not add this template:
- In articles that have some citations, but not enough, the {{More citations needed}} template should be used instead as a general template, or the {{Unreferenced section}} template for individual sections that have no citations.
- In articles containing a list of sources at the end, but no inline citations, including parenthetical references or in-text attributions, consider {{no footnotes}} when the article would be significantly improved by detailed attribution of sources to specific claims.
- Watch out for lists of general references that someone has incorrectly listed under
==External links==. If the link leads to a reliable source that supports some article content, then that website is a reference, not just an external link. - Other templates, listed below, should be used when the citations are inadequate for other reasons.
Examples Use {{no footnotes}} Add {{third-party}}, too Use only {{unreferenced}} Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat. Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. References Expert, Alice. (1987) Book You've Never Heard of from a Library. External links Official website Alternatives:
- Be bold! Consider searching for sources and citing them in the article, instead of adding this template.
- In articles about people and businesses, consider using the more specific
{{Third-party sources}}template, to encourage citation of WP:Independent sources rather than the subject's own website. - See Wikipedia:Biographies of living people for guidance on dealing with unreferenced biographies of living people.
- Consider not adding this template to very brief stubs, since anyone visiting the page can see, in a single glance, that it contains no citations.
Parameters edit
There are six parameters, one positional, and five named parameters. All parameters are optional.
|1=– scope of notification (e.g., 'paragraph', 'section', 'article', etc.) default: 'article'. see Details.|date=– month name and year; e.g. 'April 2024' (no default)|find=– search keywords for {{find sources}} param 1 (double-quoted search); default: page title. See details below.|find2=– search keywords for {{find sources}} param 2 (unquoted search). Alias:unquoted. See below.|small=– set toleftorno; see details at Ambox. Default: standard-width banner.|status=– if set tohasaref, alters the tracking category to Category:All articles possibly lacking sources
Examples edit
{{Unreferenced|date=April 2024}}or
{{subst:Unreferenced}}Substitution of this template will automatically fill the date parameter.
The optional
|find=parameter is available, for modifying the operation of the {{find sources}} links displayed by the template:{{Unreferenced|find=search keyword(s)|date=April 2024}}see below for details.
To flag an individual section as being unreferenced, use the
{{Unreferenced section}}template, which categorizes more narrowly:{{Unreferenced section|date=April 2024}}Details edit
Positional parameter 1
- Positional parameter
|1=is the 'type' parameter, which may be set to paragraph or section or any string value. To mark an unreferenced section of an article, please use {{Unreferenced section}} instead.
Date parameter:
- The
|date=parameter is (generally[1]) used to indicate when the template was added to a page. An example of its usage is{{Unreferenced|date=April 2024}}. Adding this parameter sorts the article into monthly subcategories of Category:Articles lacking sources, rather than adding it to Category:Articles lacking sources itself, allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first. If the date parameter is omitted, a bot will add it later.
Find parameters:
- There are two 'find' parameters available to control the presentation and operation of the {{find sources}} links optionally displayed by the {{Unreferenced}} template. By default, the template displays {{find sources}} with a quoted search query equivalent to the exact article title. Sometimes, especially if the article has a long, descriptive title, or if it includes parenthetical disambiguation terms, this may not give useful results. The find parameters can be used to provide the search keywords of your choice to the {{find sources}} links. Use:
|find=to specify keywords for an exact search (double-quoted query); this corresponds to {{find sources}} positional param|1.|find2=to specify keywords for an unquoted search; this corresponds to {{find sources}} param|2. The alias|unquoted=may be used instead.
The value "none" may be passed to 'find' (
|find=none) to suppress display of find sources links. (Note that specifying|find=noneand a nonempty value for|find2=is not a valid combination.)General information edit
This template can either be placed at the top of an article, at the bottom of the article page (in an empty "References" or "Notes" section—usually just before a {{Reflist}} template), or on the article's talk page.
Categorization edit
This template adds the article to Category:Articles lacking sources and a monthly subcategory such as Category:Articles lacking sources from April 2024 (as described above), which are hidden categories.
edit
The similar template {{More citations needed}} adds an article to Category:Articles needing additional references. {{More medical citations needed}} adds the article to Category:Articles needing additional medical references as well as Category:Articles needing additional references.
Short-cut edit
- {{Unref}}
- {{NR}}
- {{No ref}}
- {{No sources}}
- {{Citesources}}
TemplateData edit
This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Unreferenced in articles based on its TemplateData. TemplateData for Unreferenced This template generates a tag to indicate that an article has no citations.Template parameters[Edit template data]This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter Description Type Status Type (e.g., section) 1Text to replace the word "article", usually "section". This is a legacy feature, and this usage has been replaced with the separate '{{Unreferenced section}}' template.
- Example
- section
- Auto value
section
String optional Month and year dateProvides the month and year of the citation request; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13'
- Example
- January 2013
- Auto value
{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}
String suggested Find sources keywords findSearch string for 'find sources' template. May be one or more words. Set to value 'none' to suppress 'find sources' output.
- Example
- Your keyword list
- Auto value
empty string
String optional Find2 find2unquotedSearch keywords for 'find sources' unquoted search.
String optional Tracking categories edit
- Category:All articles lacking sources (94,594)
- Category:All articles needing additional references (451,169)
See also edit
- Wikipedia:Citation needed and {{Citation needed}} – for marking a particular claim as needing a citation
- {{Find sources}}
- {{More citations needed}}
- {{Unreferenced section}}
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Sources of articles
- Wikipedia:Template messages/Cleanup
Footnotes edit
- ^ Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the WP:bots it means that older dated categories do not have to be constantly created and deleted, and it enables some measure of progress. Moreover it is "good enough" to get the articles into the workflow and the intention is to ensure they are cleaned up eventually. Occasionally however it may be useful to bulk add items, to older categories, for example when the system was initially set up, when merging two schemes or when adding to the current month would swamp it disproportionately.