Template:Better sources needed

Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]

Usage

When to use

This template indicates that the article needs better or more reliable citations. This template should be used only for articles where there are some, but insufficiently reliable, inline citations to support the material currently in the article.

Placement

According to MOS:LAYOUT, maintenance templates, such as this one, should (except when section-specific) be placed after hatnotes, at the start of the article. That placement is supported by consensus obtained in an RfC at Template talk:More citations needed/Archive 4 § RfC: Location of Tag.

Parameters

There are six parameters, one positional, and five named parameters. All parameters are optional.

• |1= – scope of notification (e.g., 'section', 'article') default: 'article'.
• |date= – month name and year; e.g. 'November 2024' (no default)
• |find= – search keywords for {{find sources}} param 1 (double-quoted search); default: page title. See details below.
• |find2= – search keywords for {{find sources}} param 2 (unquoted search). Alias: unquoted. See below.
• |small= – set to left or no; see details at Ambox. Default: standard-width banner.
• |talk= – title of talk page section where discussion can be found

Details

Talk parameter

A |talk= parameter is allowed; setting this to any value will result in the message "See talk page for details." being included in the tag. If the value is a valid anchor on the talk page (e.g., the title of a section or subsection heading), then the talk page link will go directly to that anchor; if not, then to the top of the page.

Date parameter

This template also includes support for using the |date= parameter. Be careful not to abbreviate the date. The simplest way to use this parameter manually is {{Better sources needed|{{subst:DATE}}}}, but it can be done more explicitly as {{Better sources needed|date=November 2024}} (both result in the same output). Do not use {{Better sources needed|date={{subst:DATE}}}} because {{subst:DATE}} already includes the leading date= code.

Find parameters:

There are two 'find' parameters 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 query 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 parameters can be used to provide the search keywords of your choice to the {{find sources}} links. Use:

• |find= to specify keywords for an exact search (double-quoted query); this corresponds to {{find sources}} positional param |1.
• |find2= to specify keywords for an unquoted search; this corresponds to {{find sources}} param |2. The alias |unquoted= may be used instead.

The value "none" may be passed to 'find' (|find=none) to suppress display of find sources links. (Note that specifying |find=none and a nonempty value for |find2= is not a valid combination.)

Examples

Listed below are several examples of usage:

{{Better sources needed|date=November 2024}}

{{Better sources needed|section|date=November 2024}} 

The template can be made smaller with {{Better sources needed|section|small=y}}

{{Better sources needed|section|{{subst:DATE}}|talk=Talk page section name|small=y}}

The optional |find= parameter is available, for modifying the operation of the {{find sources mainspace}} links displayed by the template:

{{Better sources needed|find=search keyword(s)|date=November 2024}}

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Better sources needed in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Better sources needed

This template generates a tag to indicate that the article needs better or more reliable citations.

Template parameters[Edit template data]

This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Affected area	1	Text to replace the word "article", usually "section" Example section	Line	optional
Talk page section	talk	Section name on the talk page for further discussion	Line	optional
Make template small	small	Enter any text here to make the template box small and aligned to the left. Example y Auto value y	Line	optional
Find	find	Search keywords for double-quoted search to pass to 'find sources'.	Line	optional
Find2	find2 Unquoted	Search keywords for unquoted search to pass to 'find sources'.	Line	optional
Month and year	date	The month and year that the template was placed (in full). "{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}" inserts the current month and year automatically. Example June 2013 Auto value {{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}	Line	suggested
name	name	no description	Unknown	optional

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Better sources needed/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.