Template:Circular/doc

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

This template indicates that the article cites a source that previously got its information from Wikipedia. Wikipedia may not cite itself, and citing a source that comes from Wikipedia is a circular reference, and may not be used as a citation for the same reason.

Usage

{{Circular}}
{{Circular|date=April 2025}}
{{Circular|section}}

Parameters

This template has one positional parameter and three named parameters, all optional:

|1= — scope of the message; set |1=section to have the message say, "This section..." (default: "This article").
|date= — month name and date, e.g.: |date=April 2025 (default: none, but supplied by bot if omitted). Supports Categorization.
|small= — banner placement; set |small=yes to have a narrow, left-margin banner (default: wide, centered banner)
|name= — for advanced usage only; see {{Ambox}}.

Categorization

The |date= parameter sorts the article into date-named subcategories such as Category:Articles lacking reliable references from April 2025 and out of the parent category (same name, without the date), allowing the oldest problems to be identified and dealt with first.

A bot will add this parameter if it is omitted. Be careful not to abbreviate the date, because then it will automatically add a redlinked category instead of the correct category. The simplest way to use this parameter manually is {{Circular|{{subst:DATE}}}} but it can be done more explicitly as {{Circular|date=April 2025}} (both result in the same output). Do not use {{Circular|date={{subst:DATE}}}} as {{DATE}} includes the leading date=.

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Circular}} {{Better sources needed}} {{Dubious}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Further reading cleanup}} {{Independent sources}} {{More citations needed}} {{More citations needed section}} {{More footnotes needed}} {{No footnotes}} {{No reliable sources}} {{No significant coverage}} {{One source}} {{One source section}} {{Only primary sources}} {{NRIS only}} {{Primary sources}} {{Primary sources section}} {{Religious text primary}} {{Self-published}} {{Self-reference cleanup}} {{Self-sourcing examples}} {{Refexample section}} {{Sources exist}} {{Text-source}} {{Unreferenced}} {{Unreferenced section}} {{Unreferenced category}} {{Unreliable sources}} {{Unreliable sources section}} {{User-generated}}
BLP-specific	{{BLP unreferenced}} {{BLP unreferenced 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 needed}} {{BLP one source}}
Topic specific	{{Localist}} {{Media IMDb refimprove}} {{More medical citations needed}} {{More science citations needed}} {{Neologism}} {{Science review}} {{Unreferenced law}} {{Unreferenced-law section}} {{Unreferenced medical section}}
Dispute-related	{{Cite check}} {{Cite check section}} {{Content}} {{Disputed}} {{Dispute about}} {{Disputed section}} {{Disputed chem}} {{Disputed list}} {{Disputed map}} {{Expert needed}} {{Hoax}} {{Original research}} {{Original research section}} {{Speculation}} {{Speculation section}} {{Synthesis}} {{Verifiability}} {{Verify sources}}
Citation improvements	{{Citation style}} {{Citations broken}} {{Cleanup bare URLs}} {{Format footnotes}} {{Full citations needed}} {{Ibid}} {{Page numbers improve}} {{Page numbers needed}} {{Shallow references}}
General advice	Citing sources Reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles

Usage

Parameters

Categorization

See also