Template:Unreferenced/doc

There are no reviewed versions of this page, so it may not have been checked for adherence to standards.

Shortcut {{Unr}}

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Terminate sentence
It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

If you plan to make breaking changes to this template, move it, or nominate it for deletion, please notify Twinkle's users and maintainers at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle as a courtesy, as this template is used in the standard installation of Twinkle. Thank you!

This template should only be used on articles that have no sources at all. Don't add this template to articles that contain even one general reference, parenthetical reference, or citation-containing footnote. A citation is any description of a reliable source that supports any of the article content, even a bare URL. The format of the citation and the name of the section heading are not what determines whether a link or citation is a source.

Usage

When to use

You may add this template only to articles that contain zero sources of any kind.

Do not add this template

In articles that have some citations, but not enough, the {{Refimprove}} template should be used instead as a general template, or the {{Unreferenced section}} template for specific unsourced sections.
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 an external link.
Other templates, listed below, should be used when the sources are inadequate for other reasons.

Alternatives

Be bold! Consider searching for references and adding them to the article, instead of 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.

How to use

{{Unreferenced|date=December 2024}}

or

{{subst:Unreferenced}}

Substitution of this template will automatically fill the date parameter.

To flag an individual section as being unreferenced, use:

{{Unreferenced|section|date=December 2024}}

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=December 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.

General information

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.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for the template used by the new VisualEditor.

Unreferenced

This template generates a tag to indicate that the article has no citations

Template parameters
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Date	`date`	The month and year that the need for citations is identified, such as 'June 2013'; may use '{{subst:DATE}}' template instead	String	optional
Type (section)	`1`	Something to replace the word "article", normally "section"	String	optional

Footnotes

↑ 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.

External links

WikiMedia Commons: Template:References missing

[date-1] 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.

[1]

Template:Unreferenced/doc

Contents

Usage

When to use

How to use

General information

Categorization

Differences from related templates

Short-cut

TemplateData

See also

Footnotes

External links