Template:Unreferenced/doc

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This is a documentation subpage for Template:Unreferenced (see that page for the template itself).
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template should be used only on articles that have no sources.

Alternatives:

In articles that have some sources, but not enough, the {{refimprove}} template should be used instead.
Other templates, listed below, should be used when the sources are inadequate for other reasons.
Be bold! Consider searching for references and adding them to the article, instead of this template.
Consider not adding this template to extremely short articles.

This adds articles to Category:Articles lacking sources. This template should not be substituted (subst:).

[edit] Usage

This template should be placed at the top of an article. There are two optional parameters:

Description field: The optional description field is used to indicate more specifically what should be referenced. An example of its usage is {{unreferenced|article's section called "Childhood"}}. The description field is commonly omitted, which is acceptable, and the information box displayed in an article would then read "This article does not cite any references or sources." If a description is supplied, the word article in the information box is replaced with the description; for the example just given, the information box would read "This article's section called 'Childhood' does not cite any references or sources."

Date parameter: The date parameter, which is recommended, is used to indicate when the template was added to a page. An example of its usage is {{unreferenced|date=June 2008}}. 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.

The two optional fields can be used together, and placed in either order. For example, both {{unreferenced|article's section called "Childhood"|date=June 2008}} and {{unreferenced|date=June 2008|article's section called "Childhood"}} have the same effect.

This article's section called "Childhood" does not cite any references or sources. (June 2008)
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

[edit] Differences from related templates

One difference between the {{unreferenced}} template and the similar templates {{refimprove}} and {{unreferencedsection}} is that {{unreferenced}} adds an article to Category:Articles lacking sources, while {{refimprove}} and {{unreferencedsection}} add an article to Category:Articles needing additional references.

A common practice is to supply a description of "section", as in {{unreferenced|section}}, which results in an information box reading "This section does not cite any references or sources." This is the same message that is displayed when using {{unreferencedsection}}, but the two templates place an article in different categories, as noted above.

Note: when adding {{unreferenced|section}} to a section of an article, then the date parameter must be included. Otherwise, SmackBot will change the template to {{unreferencedsection}} when it adds the date parameter.