Template:Date missing/doc


 * This template is an in-line request for the date that a source was published. For the date an event occurred use date needed.

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".

Usage
This template should never be substituted.


 * With references in a Cite-type template (Cite web, Cite book, Citation, etc.):
 * date
 * With a free-form reference citation, just append to the end of the citation.

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 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&#58;:
 * International format (for most articles), full format (usually for news items):
 * D[D] Monthname YYYY
 * US format (for articles in American English), full format (usually for news items):
 * Monthname D[D], YYYY
 * Month and year only (usually for magazines and journals)
 * Monthname YYYY
 * Or, if just a year would be more appropriate (e.g. for books and non-news websites), specify it using year:
 * YYYY
 * This solution is mainly for cases where date? was used improperly and year? 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.
 * Some publications use some other kind of date range, such as a season or whatever:
 * Winter 2009/2010
 * March/April, 2010
 * 1st Quarter, 2010
 * For a free-form citation&#58;:
 * Just add the date, as appropriate to the format of the citation; or...
 * Better yet, convert the entire citation to Cite journal, Cite news or some other Cite-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.
 * Use the copyright year (or year range) if one is specified, and use [square brackets] to specify that this is what it is:
 * 2006–2010 [copyright date]
 * If the template will break without using the date parameter, then go ahead:
 * 2006–2010 [copyright date]
 * 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).
 * 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.
 * Another option is an estimation, if you have reason to know approximately when something was published (i.e., you are better than guessing):
 * ca. September 15, 2009
 * 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 unspecified
 * or
 * [date unspecified]
 * For free-form citations:
 * 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? again!
 * Do not use none, 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?.
 * Do not use none, 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?.


 * If you don't know:
 * 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-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? as well.