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Template:Date missing

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[date missing]

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This template is an in-line request for the date that a source was published. For the date an event occurred use {{when}}.
This template should not be substituted.
Use this template sparingly
It should only be placed in citation templates that are missing a date but should have one because the source cited is not properly identified without it. For example, most books and non-news Web pages are only published with a year as the publication date, and should not be tagged with this template. (See {{year missing}} for missing publication years).
Shortcut
  • {{date?}}

{{Date missing}} (or {{date?}} for short) is an inline cleanup template flagging a broken source citation that is missing the date of publication of the cited source (or at least the specified fact that date is not available). "Date" here usually means "more information than just the year".

Many references are added with an access-date= but no publication date. This may be due to the use of citation tools that cannot identify a page's date, but of course the access-date= is always today. The lack of a publication date is clearly wrong, an error; but {{Cite}} documentation says clearly "Access dates are not required for links to published research papers, published books, or news articles with publication dates."

Contents

  • 1 Usage
  • 2 How to fix the problem flagged by this template
  • 3 TemplateData
  • 4 See also

UsageEdit

red-outlined triangle containing exclamation point Do not place this template in any Citation Style 1 citation's |date= parameters. All text in |date= parameters is made part of the citation's COinS metadata. The |date= parameters should include date data only.

For all free-form and {{Cite xxx}}-type template references ({{Cite web}}, {{Cite book}}, {{Citation}}, etc.), place {{date missing}} at the end of the citation, typically just before the ending </ref> tag

How to fix the problem flagged by this templateEdit

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

  • If you know the date (or date range in some cases), fill in the needed information, and remove the template.
    For a template-formatted citation, there are five basic ways to do this:
    1. International format (for most articles), full format (usually for news items):
      |date=D[D] Monthname YYYY
    2. US format (for articles in American English), full format (usually for news items):
      |date=Monthname D[D], YYYY
    3. Month and year only (usually for magazines and journals)
      |date=Monthname YYYY
    4. Or, if just a year would be more appropriate (e.g. for books and non-news websites), specify it using |year=:
      |year=YYYY
      This solution is mainly for cases where {{date missing}} was used improperly and {{year missing}} really should have been used. Some templates such as {{Cite journal}} and {{Cite news}} really do expect a |date= not |year= parameter for most applications.
    5. Some publications use some other kind of date range, such as a season or whatever:
      |date=Winter 2009/2010
      |date=March/April, 2010
      |date=1st Quarter, 2010
    For a free-form citation:
    1. Just add the date, as appropriate to the format of the citation; or...
    2. Better yet, convert the entire citation to {{Cite journal}}, {{Cite news}} or some other {{Cite xxx}}-series template, as appropriate for the work in question.
  • If you know that no date was specified by the original source, as is common on many non-news Web pages, you have several options, listed here in order of preference.
    1. Use the copyright year (or year range) if one is specified, and use [square brackets] to specify that this is what it is:
      |year=2006–2010 [copyright date]
      If the template will break without using the |date= parameter, then go ahead:
      |date=2006–2010 [copyright date]
    2. Failing that, for a non-news source, use the page's last-modified date (use your browser's "get page info" type of command; for example it is "Tools > Page info" in Firefox on Windows); only use this date if it is plausible (many sites always show a very recent last-modified date because of dynamic content updating such as sidebar ads).
      |date=23 March 2003 [last updated]
      Use the format appropriate for the article and source/citation type.
      This solution should never be used with news journalism, as it is closely tied an event's specific date, the accuracy of which is important for placing such a source in proper context.
    3. Another option is an estimation, if you have reason to know approximately when something was published (i.e., you are better than guessing):
      |date=ca. September 15, 2009
    4. Finally, explicitly state that the year was unspecified if none of the above are practical (it will appear inside parentheses in most citation templates, but if it does not it should probably be put in [square brackets]):
      |date=date unspecified
      or
      |date=[date unspecified]
    For free-form citations:
    No date specified.
    Do not use question marks.
    Do not just repeat the year if already given in a |year= parameter.
    Do not leave the information blank and untag it, or someone else will just come along later and flag this with {{date missing}} again!
    Do not use |date=none, |date=unknown or anything else vague; any implication other than that the source itself did not specify a date is simply a signal to other editors to re-tag it with {{date missing}}.
  • If you don't know:
    1. Check the source and add the necessary information, as above.
    Do not use question marks.
    If the source is a dead link, check archive.org for a backup copy (see your {{Citation}}/{{Cite xxx}}-type template's documentation for use of |archiveurl= and |archivedate= parameters). If no archive copy is available, use {{dead link}} after the citation, but leave {{date missing}} as well.

TemplateDataEdit

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. Click here to see a monthly parameter usage report for this template based on this TemplateData.

TemplateData for Date missing

Use this inline template before a citation's </ref> tag to indicate that the citation is missing a full date where one is warranted. Not for use on events missing their date of occurrence; for this, use the template {{when}}.

[Edit template data]

Template parameters

ParameterDescriptionTypeStatus
Month and yeardate

Month and year of tagging; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13'

Example
January 2013
Auto value
{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}
Stringsuggested

See alsoEdit

Source citation guidelines
  • Wikipedia:Citing sources
  • Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources
  • Wikipedia:Verifiability
Citation repair templates
  • {{full citation needed}} – the catch-all
  • {{author missing}}
  • {{author incomplete}} – a variant for partial data
  • {{date missing}}
  • {{ISBN missing}}
  • {{place missing}}
  • {{publisher missing}}
  • {{title missing}}
  • {{title incomplete}} – a variant for partial data
  • {{year missing}}
Other
  • {{when}} – to ask (in regular article prose) for the date that an event occurred
  • v
  • t
  • e
Inline cleanup tags
Attribution
  • {{According to whom}}
  • {{Attribution needed}}
  • {{By whom}}
  • {{From whom?}}
  • {{Like whom?}}
  • {{To whom?}}
  • {{Who}}
  • {{With whom}}
Clarity
  • {{Ambiguous}}
  • {{Clarify}}
  • {{Clarify span}}
  • {{Clarify timeframe}}
  • {{Context inline}}
  • {{Expand acronym}}
  • {{Incomprehensible inline}}
  • {{Incomprehensible inline span}}
  • {{Non sequitur}}
  • {{Sentence fragment}}
  • {{Which calendar}}
Miscellaneous
  • {{Chinese script needed inline}}
  • {{Copyright violation}}
  • {{Copyvio link}}
  • {{Data missing}}
  • {{Disambiguation needed}}
  • {{External links inline}}
  • {{Improve caption}}
  • {{Needs IPA}}
  • {{Original research inline}}
  • {{Original research span}}
  • {{Pronunciation needed}}
  • {{Siadn}}
  • {{Spam link}}
  • {{Synthesis inline}}
  • {{Synthesis inline span}}
  • {{Under discussion inline}}
  • {{Verify spelling}}
  • {{Whose translation}}
Neutrality
  • {{Buzzword inline}}
  • {{Compared to?}}
  • {{Editorializing}}
  • {{Fact or opinion}}
  • {{Opinion}}
  • {{Peacock inline}}
  • {{POV statement}}
  • {{Promotion inline}}
  • {{Unbalanced opinion}}
  • {{Weasel inline}}
  • {{Weasel word some span}}
Precision
  • {{By how much}}
  • {{Definition}}
  • {{Definition needed}}
  • {{Example needed}}
  • {{Example needed span}}
  • {{Explain}}
  • {{How}}
  • {{How often}}
  • {{Misquoted}}
  • {{Quantify}}
  • {{Specify}}
  • {{Vague}}
  • {{When}}
  • {{Where}}
  • {{Which}}
  • {{Who else}}
  • {{Why}}
  • {{Year needed}}
Excessive
  • {{Duplication span}}
  • {{Importance inline}}
  • {{Relevance inline}}
  • {{Undue weight inline}}
  • {{Globalize-inline}}
Time-sensitivity
  • {{Anachronism inline}}
  • {{Clarify timeframe}}
  • {{Current event inline}}
  • {{Is this date calibrated?}}
  • {{Update after}}
  • {{Update inline}}
  • {{Update inline span}}
Verifiability
Dubious
  • {{Contradict-inline}}
  • {{Disputed inline}}
  • {{Dubious}}
  • {{Dubious span}}
  • {{Inconsistent}}
  • {{Needs independent confirmation}}
  • {{Speculation inline}}
Bare URLs
  • {{Bare URL inline}}
  • {{Bare URL non-HTML}}
  • {{Bare URL AV media}}
  • {{Bare URL PDF}}
  • {{Bare URL image}}
  • {{Bare URL DOC}}
  • {{Bare URL plain text}}
  • {{Bare URL spreadsheet}}
Incomplete or
broken citation
  • {{Author incomplete}}
  • {{Author missing}}
  • {{Date missing}}
  • {{Dead link}}
  • {{Edition needed}}
  • {{Episode needed}}
  • {{Full citation needed}}
  • {{Incomplete short citation}}
  • {{ISBN missing}}
  • {{Moved resource}}
  • {{Page needed}}
  • {{Place missing}}
  • {{Publisher missing}}
  • {{Season needed}}
  • {{Time needed}}
  • {{Title incomplete}}
  • {{Title missing}}
  • {{Volume needed}}
  • {{Year missing}}
Missing or
problematic
reference
  • {{Additional citation needed}}
  • {{Better source needed}}
  • {{Better source needed example}}
  • {{Check quotation}}
  • {{Chronology citation needed}}
  • {{Citation needed}}
  • {{Citation needed span}}
  • {{Citation not found}}
  • {{COI source}}
  • {{Deprecated inline}}
  • {{Excessive citations inline}}
  • {{Failed verification}}
  • {{Failed verification span}}
  • {{Imagefact}}
  • {{Irrelevant citation}}
  • {{Medical citation needed}}
  • {{Medical citation needed span}}
  • {{Nonspecific}}
  • {{Not verified in body}}
  • {{Obsolete source}}
  • {{Page range too broad}}
  • {{Primary source inline}}
  • {{Promotional source}}
  • {{Quote without source}}
  • {{Request quotation}}
  • {{Request quotation span}}
  • {{Retracted}}
  • {{Scientific citation needed}}
  • {{Self-published inline}}
  • {{Tertiary source inline}}
  • {{Third-party inline}}
  • {{Unreliable fringe source}}
  • {{Unreliable medical source}}
  • {{Unreliable source?}}
  • {{Verify quote}}
  • {{Verify source}}
Wording
  • {{Buzzword inline}}
  • {{Colloquialism}}
  • {{Copy edit inline}}
  • {{Neologism inline}}
  • {{Technical inline}}
  • {{Tone inline}}
General advice
  • Citing sources
  • Reliable sources
  • Maintenance template removal
  • Citation needed
  • Find sources
  • Combining sources
  • Referencing styles
  • Inline cleanup templates
  •  WikiProject Inline Templates
The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Date missing/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.
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