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{{Unr}}

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

This template is used on 120,000+ 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.

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 the standard installation of Twinkle adds and removes this template. Thank you!

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, 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 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 an external link.
Other templates, listed below, should be used when the citations are inadequate for other reasons.

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.

How to use

{{Unreferenced|date=December 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=December 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=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.

Find parameter:

The |find= parameter is 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 term 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 parameter can be used to provide the search keywords of your choice to the {{find sources}} links. The value "none" may be passed (|find=none) to suppress display of find sources.

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 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
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Type (e.g., section)	`1`	Text 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	deprecated
Month and year	`date`	Provides 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

Tracking categories

Category:All articles lacking sources (71,500)
Category:All articles needing additional references (474,787)

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.

[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]

@@ Line 37: / Line 37: @@
 [[Help:Substitution|Substitution]] of this template will automatically fill the date parameter.
+The optional {{para|find}} parameter is available, for modifying the operation of the {{tl|find sources}} links displayed by the template:
+{{tlc|Unreferenced|find{{=}}search keyword(s)|date{{=}}{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}}}
+see below for details.
 To flag an individual section as being unreferenced, use the {{tlx|Unreferenced section}} template, which categorizes more narrowly:
@@ Line 42: / Line 48: @@
 {{tlc|Unreferenced section|date{{=}}{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}}}
+'''Date parameter:'''
-;Date parameter: The date parameter is (generally<ref name="date">Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the [[WP:bot]]s 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.</ref>) used to indicate when the template was added to a page. An example of its usage is {{tlc|Unreferenced|date{{=}}{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. 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 [[Wikipedia:Bot policy|bot]] will add it later.
+: The {{para|date}} parameter is (generally<ref name="date">Because of the nature of the workflow using the current date makes sense, it is simpler to add, especially for the [[WP:bot]]s 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.</ref>) used to indicate when the template was added to a page. An example of its usage is {{tlc|Unreferenced|date{{=}}{{CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{CURRENTYEAR}}}}. 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 [[Wikipedia:Bot policy|bot]] will add it later.
+'''Find parameter:'''
+: The {{para|find}} parameter is available to control the presentation and operation of the {{tl|find sources}} links optionally displayed by the {{tl|Unreferenced}} template. By default, the template displays {{tl|find sources}} with a quoted search term equivalent to the exact article title. Sometimes, especially if the article has a long, [[WP:NDESC|descriptive title]], or if it includes [[WP:PARENDIS|parenthetical disambiguation terms]], this may not give useful results. The find parameter can be used to provide the search keywords of your choice to the {{tl|find sources}} links. The value "none" may be passed (<code>|find=none</code>) to suppress display of ''find sources''.
 === General information===

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Circular}} {{Better sources needed}} {{Dubious}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{More citations needed}} {{More citations needed section}} {{More footnotes needed}} {{No footnotes}} {{No reliable sources}} {{No significant coverage}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS only}} {{Primary sources}} {{Primary sources section}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Self-reference cleanup}} {{Self-sourcing examples}} {{Refexample section}} {{Sources exist}} {{Text-source}} {{Third-party}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreferenced category}} {{Unreliable sources}} {{Unreliable sources section}} {{User-generated}}
BLP-specific	{{BLP unreferenced}} {{BLP unreferenced section}} {{BLP primary sources}} {{BLP self-published}} {{BLP sources}} {{BLP sources section}} {{BLP IMDb-only refimprove}} {{BLP IMDb refimprove}} {{BLP no footnotes}} {{BLP more footnotes needed}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Localist}} {{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{More medical citations needed}} {{More science citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced law}} {{Unreferenced-law section}} {{Unreferenced medical section}}
Dispute-related	{{Cite check}} {{Cite check section}} {{Content}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Disputed chem}} {{Disputed list}} {{Disputed map}} {{Expert needed}} {{Hoax}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Full citations needed}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}} {{Shallow references}}
General advice	Citing sources Reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles

Revision as of 02:04, 2 July 2020

Usage

When to use

How to use

General information

Categorization

Differences from related templates

Short-cut

TemplateData

Tracking categories

See also

Footnotes