Template:Author missing/doc

Template:Nosubst {{Author missing}} (or {{author?}} for short) is an inline cleanup template flagging a broken source citation that is missing author information (or at least the specified fact that author information is not available).

Usage

• For all citations, append the tag to the end of the citation (usually just before the closing reference tag </ref>):

  {{author missing}}

• In the occasional case of a partial name (e.g. just a family name, or some construction such as "Dr. Falstaff" or "Reagan and Parkes" or "VNEA" without the full information being provided in a "Notes", "References" or "Bibliography" section elsewhere on the page), you can change the displayed text to ^{[author incomplete]} using:

  {{author missing|partial=yes}}

  or

  {{author incomplete}}

How to fix the problem flagged by this template

Do not remove the template without fixing the problem one of the following ways.

• If you know the author(s), fill in the needed information, and remove the template.

  For a template-formatted citation, there are three basic ways to do this:

  1. Template:ParaTemplate:Para

     or, for multiple authors:

  2. Template:Para Template:Para Template:Para Template:Para, etc

     or for a committee, working group, etc., instead of individual author names:

  3. Template:Para

  For a free-form citation:

  1. Just add the name(s) as appropriate to the format of the citation; or...
  2. Better yet, convert the entire citation to {{Cite journal}}, {{Cite news}} or some other {{Template:Citation}}-series template, as appropriate for the work in question.

• If you know that no author was specified by the original source, as in common in many newswires, explicitly state this with:
  1. Template:Para

     or for free-form citations:

  2. <!--No author specified by source.-->

  Do not use question marks.

  Do not just repeat the publisher, work (publication/site) name, or other field.

  Do not leave the information blank and untag it, or someone else will just come along later and flag this with {{author missing}} again! The citation templates know how to properly format a citation to something with no specified author (thus the HTML comment formatting above).

  Do not use Template:Para

  Do not use Template:Para, Template:Para or anything else vague; any implication other than that the source itself did not specify an author is simply a signal to other editors to re-tag it with {{author missing}}.

• If you don't know:

  Do not use question marks.

  1. Check the source, and add the necessary information, as above.

  If the source is a dead link, check archive.org for a backup copy (see your {{Citation}}/{{Template:Citation}}-type template's documentation for use of Template:Para and Template:Para parameters). If no archive copy is available, use {{dead link}} after the citation, but leave {{author missing}} as well.