Template:Update after

^{[update needed]}

Usage

• Parameter 1 is the year
• Parameter 2 is the month number
• Parameter 3 is the day of the month
• Optional parameter 4 is a custom category, such as a WikiProject's article maintenance category, for example a Category:United States articles in need of updating, under Category:WikiProject United States.
• Optional named parameter COMMENT= is for leaving a note to the next editor about what exactly needs to be changed (if it's not obvious or if there are multiple items) and where to find the new information.
• Optional named parameter BANNER=Y is for showing a banner (same as the banner for {{Update}}) instead of "update needed". This is for marking an entire article or section as needing update. Please write this parameter in UPPER-CASE.

This template shows the ^{[update needed]} note shown above (or a banner, if that is enabled), but the message is only visible on or after the specified (future) date. The date is specified as a year, followed by a month (1-12; leading zero is okay), followed by a day (again, leading zero is okay), for example

{{Update after | 2008 | 11 | 4}}

for November 4, 2008. An optional 4th parameter is for a category for the article to be put into on the specified date, although the page probably needs to be viewed before this occurs. An example of this would be

{{Update after | 2008 | 11 | 4 | United States articles in need of updating}}

If the nature of the needed update(s) or the source of the updated information might not be clear, this should be mentioned also by adding a COMMENT= parameter. An example of this might be:

{{Update after | 2008 | 11 | 4 | COMMENT=Show name of new president, and list the election statistics, such as how many Electoral College votes there were for each candidate (perhaps broken down by state), and how the actual votes compared to predictions; information will be available on virtually all U.S. news sites. May also want voter and other reactions. Check talk page to see if there's anything else which should be mentioned}}.

For clarity, named parameters should follow unnamed parameters, as in:

{{Update after | 2008 | 11 | 4

| United States articles in need of updating

| COMMENT=Show name of new president, and list the election statistics, such as how many Electoral College votes there were for each candidate (perhaps broken down by state), and how the actual votes compared to predictions; information will be available on virtually all U.S. news sites. May also want voter and other reactions. Check talk page to see if there's anything else which should be mentioned}}.

Note that the sample above is broken into multiple lines for readability; it should still work fine.

A banner can be shown, instead of "update needed", by using the BANNER=Y named parameter:

{{Update after | 2008 | 11 | 4 | United States articles in need of updating | BANNER=Y | COMMENT=If G.W. Bush gets elected to a third term, this article will need massive rewriting}}.

Please read Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly; use {{update after}} only in exceptional cases. Do not use this template on pages which simply need to be reviewed later to see if they might need updating; it should only be used when there is a certainty or very high probability that an update is needed. (A Template:review after may be created for articles whose need for updates is uncertain.) Do not use this template on talk pages; in non-banner mode it is intended for inline usage, like {{fact}}, and in banner mode as a section- or article-top cleanup notice. It is probably not necessary to use this template on frequently edited articles such as for current events, as they will be being updated on a regular basis. Do not use this template within section heading (i.e., between the opening and closing == or === of a section heading), as it will break the heading.

It is acceptable to continue to use this template when an expected event does not occur; the date can be updated to expire a reasonable time later (such as a week, month, or quarter; this should be fairly commonsensical) after which an editor can check again; by that time, if the event still has not occurred, the source material should at least have an explanation of the reason and a new target date. For the benefit of readers, a note can be provided to indicate that the expected event has not occurred as of such-and-such a date, so that they will know that someone is keeping on top of the matter.

Effects

• When the template is added to an article, the article is linked to As of yyyy (where "yyyy" is the expiration year); a list of such pages can be found at Wikipedia:As of.
• At approximately the expiration date (the exact day can be varied with changes to the template formulas), the article is linked to Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating, and the category (if any) which is specified as a parameter. The phrase "update needed", or a banner, also appears in the text of the article at the indicated spot.

See Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating for a list of pages currently needing updates.

Related templates

• {{Update}} can be used to mark an entire article or section needing to be updated. Like {{update after}}, this template adds the article to Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating.
• {{Out of date}} is used to mark an article whose factual accuracy may be compromised (although this may be disputed) due to out of date information. This template adds the article to Category:Articles with obsolete information.

Developmental notes

This template was developed in order to resolve a number of problems seen with the Wikipedia:As of links, and is useful more broadly because it enables the useful feature of pre-planning article cleanup.

• The template is outside of the standard Wikipedia namespace; there is no sign of it in "flattened" print or CD versions except maybe when the prose passes the expiration date.
• Carefully-planned usage instructions, which are partially enforced by the template mechanism.
• Can be extended and/or modified, and all pages that it is already used on will show the changes.
• Prose does not need to be altered to accommodate it; it is invisible to readers until the "due date".
• NO maintenance is needed; the built-in Wikipedia "what links here' mechanism is used to determine which pages need to be updated for a particular day, and a formula is used to generate the correct links.
• The template is very simple to use, and it is very simple to find pages needing update.
• Has been modified to work with other techniques, such as {{Update}} and {{Out of date}}, and can be further extended as needed.
• The template itself is modular and heavily commented, in case future changes to the template are desired.
• The dates of the text display, linking to Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating, and custom categories are all calculated independently, so that each of these events can be set to occur on different days.
• A full date is required; this helps force/remind editors to be careful to select and specify a date when a change will be needed.

Notes for future reference

• Wikipedia:Updating information is effectively dead, so this template no longer refers to it or any of its subpages.
• The ^{[update needed]} message or the banner currently appear on the day specified, but does not need to; as a cosmetic issue with regards to non-editors (readers), the template can be modified to show this at a later day than the date on which the article is scheduled to be updated. Specifically, it may be desirable to have the message or banner not appear until the next day or so, to give update editors a chance to update the page before readers see the notice.
• A Template:Review after template will probably be created later, once Template:Update after appears to be working satisfactorily.