Template:Unreferenced/doc: Difference between revisions

<big>'''This template should only be used on articles that have no citations or references at all.'''</big> Don't add this template to articles that contain even one [[Wikipedia:General references|general reference]], [[Wikipedia:Parenthetical referencing|parenthetical reference]], or citation-containing [[Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Footnotes|footnote]]. A citation is ''any'' description of a [[WikipediaWPWikipedia:WP:RS|reliable source]] that supports any of the article content, even a [[Wikipedia:Link rot|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.</div>

*In articles containing a list of sources at the end, but no [[Wikipedia:WP:Inline citations|inline citations]], including parenthetical references or [[Wikipedia:WP:INTEXT|in-text attributions]], consider {{tl|no footnotes}} when the article would be significantly improved by detailed attribution of sources to specific claims.

*Watch out for lists of [[WP:General references|general references]] that someone has incorrectly listed under <code>==External links==</code>. If the link leads to a reliable source that supports some article content, then that website is a reference, not an [[Wikipedia:WP:EL|external link]].

*In articles about people and businesses, consider using the more specific {{tlx|Third-party sources}} template, to encourage citation of [[Wikipedia:WP:Independent sources|WP:Independent sources]] rather than the subject's own website.

*See [[Wikipedia:Biographies of living people|Biographies of living people]] for guidance on dealing with unreferenced biographies of living people. <!-- note that this is phrased so that it is accurate no matter what WP:BLP happens to say at any given moment. -->

: 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 [[Wikipedia: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|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, [[Wikipedia:WP:NDESC|descriptive title]], or if it includes [[Wikipedia: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''.

*[[Wikipedia:Wikipedia:Citation needed]] and {{Tl|Citation needed}} – for marking a particular claim as needing a citation