Template:Update after

^{[update needed]}

Usage

This template shows the ^{[update needed]} note shown above, but the note becomes visible only on a particular (future) date. The date is specified as a year, followed by a month (1-12), followed by a day, 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 Government articles in need of update}}.

Please read Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly; use update after only in exceptional cases. Do not use update after 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 100% probability that an update is needed. Do not use this template on talk pages. It is probably not necessary to use this template on frequently edited articles such as for current events. Never add this template referring to the current day or any date in the past. Do not use this template within section headers.

Go to Wikipedia:Updating information for a list of pages currently needing updates. See Wikipedia talk:Updating information for links to future years, if you're curious about what has already been linked but has not yet expired.

Related templates

• Template:Update can be used to mark an entire article or section needing to be updated.
• Template:Out of date is used to mark an article whose factual accuracy may be compromised due to out of date information.

History

This template partially replaces the [[As of nnnn]] convention. These pages have multiple problems, such as being in the encyclopedic namespace, frequently not being used correctly or consistently, and editors often unnecessarily torture the prose in order to use it. This template resolves these problems, since the update warning only appears after an indicated future date, does not appear when a page is printed, does not require artificially linking any text in the article, and the mechanism only works properly for future dates.

Discussion

Developmental discussion is at Wikipedia talk:As of#Template:Update after.

Notes for future reference

• The ^{[update needed]} message currently appears on the day specified, but does not need to; as a cosmetic issue with regards to non-editors, 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 not appear until the next day or so, to give update editors a chance to update the page before readers see the notice.
• The same applies to the category; it can be made to appear a day or so later.
• A Template:Review after template will probably be created later, once Template:Update after appears to be working satisfactorily.