Template:BLP sources/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:BLP sources.
It contains usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used on approximately 90,000 pages, so changes to it will be widely noticed. Please test any changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Please consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

If you plan to make breaking changes to this template, move it, or nominate it for deletion, please notify Twinkle's users and maintainers at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle as a courtesy, as this template is used in the standard installation of Twinkle. Thank you!

Contentious material that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful.

Alternatives:

In BLP articles that have no sources at all, the {{subst:prod blp}} template should be used. Otherwise, use {{BLP unsourced}}.
In non-BLP articles that require additional sources, the {{refimprove}} template should be used instead.
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 template uses Lua:

Usage

This template is intended to be placed at the top of articles about living persons that need additional references, and therefore in need of immediate attention. If the article is not about a living or recently deceased subject, you may wish to use {{Refimprove}} instead.

Please add a date parameter. Adding a date parameter sorts the article into subcategories of Category:BLP articles lacking sources and out of the parent category, allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first.

Finally, if the article has a defaultsort, this is used for these categories as well. Otherwise, it is sorted on the first word (usually the first name).

Parameters

date = December 2024 - required parameter, will be added by bot
reason = text - optional parameter which appends advisory text

The following parameter is obsolete: |suffix= (simply use the first unnamed parameter).

Examples

Paste-ready example: {{BLP sources|date=December 2024}}

Example with reason: {{BLP sources|date=December 2024|reason=}}

This template can be used with a "section" parameter to tag specific sections: {{BLP sources|section|date=December 2024}}

Redirects

Tracking categories

The template populates:

Category:Pages using BLP sources with unknown parameters (0) – when unrecognized parameters are invoked on the transcluding page.

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData documentation for this template used by VisualEditor and other tools; see the monthly error report for this template.

TemplateData for BLP sources

<templatedata>{ "description": "A template to display that a biography of a living person needs additional sources", "params": {

 "date": {
   "label": "Date",
   "description": "The month and year the template was added, in the form \"July 2013\"",
   "type": "string",
   "required": true,
   "autovalue": "{{SUBST:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{SUBST:CURRENTYEAR}}",
   "example": "June 2016"
 },
 "reason": {
   "label": "Reason",
   "description": "A reason for adding the tag",
   "type": "string"
 },
 "1": {
   "label": "Section",
   "description": "Add \"section\" if the tag applies to a particular section",
   "type": "string"
 }

}}</templatedata>

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Better source}} {{Category unsourced}} {{Uncited category}} {{Circular}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{More citations needed}} {{More footnotes}} {{No footnotes}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS-only}} {{Partisan sources}} {{Primary sources}} {{Refimprove section}} {{Refexample}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Third-party}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreliable sources}}
BLP specific	{{BLP unsourced}} {{BLP unsourced section}} {{BLP primary sources}} {{BLP self-published}} {{BLP sources}} {{BLP sources section}} {{BLP IMDb-only refimprove}} {{BLP IMDb refimprove}} {{BLP no footnotes}} {{BLP more footnotes}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{Local}} {{Medical citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Refimprove science}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced-law}} {{Unreferenced-law section}} {{Unreferenced-medical section}}
Dispute related	{{Cite check}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Bad linked references}} {{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Cleanup partial cites}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}} {{Time needed}} {{Unlinked references}}
General advice	Citing sources Identifying reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles