Template:Excessive citations/doc

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

When to use

This template should be used only on articles that have sources.

It may be used with {{Refimprove}} or other check references templates. This template should not be used with stubs.

This template should be used to indicate that there are an excessive number of citations in an article or section of an article. Such a large number of citations can be aesthetically unappealing and may make the article unreadable or may lead to confusion about what exactly each citation is used in support of.

This template may be removed by anyone who fixes the problem with the excessive number of citations.

How to use

To use this template, place {{Excessive citations|date=November 2024}} on the article page or talk page in a location that may aid in conveying the message of the template. This template may be used within {{Multiple issues}} and placement of this template on the article page is guided by Template messages/Cleanup. The following parameters may be specified for this template:

|date= should preferably be used to categorize the article in a subcategory of Category:Wikipedia references cleanup. This helps with addressing aged cleanup messages. (e.g., {{Excessive citations|date=November 2024}}.)
|details= may be used to provide more details on some of the aspects that should be addressed for the given article. (e.g., {{Excessive citations|date=November 2024|details=In particular, citation titles should be specified}})
| A first unnamed parameter may be used to specify whether the template applies to the entire article or a section of the article (e.g., {{Excessive citations|section|date=November 2024}}. If not specified, the first unnamed parameter defaults to "article."

Operation

This template will categorise tagged articles into Category:Wikipedia references cleanup and Category:Articles covered by WikiProject Wikify.

This template is a self-reference.

This template should not be substituted.

In-line use

If inline usage is desired, please use {{Excessive citations inline}}, which also has the shortcut {{overcite}}. This template produces^{[excessive citations]}

Template data

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

TemplateData for Excessive citations

This template generates a tag to indicate that the article needs additional inline citations.

Template parameters
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Date	`date`	The month and year that the need for citations is identified, such as 'June 2013'; may use '{{subst:DATE}}' template instead	String	optional
Section	`1`	Specifies the region of the page to which this template applies, such as 'section' or 'table'. Omit if the template applies to the whole article.	String	optional
Small	`small`	Any value (such as 'y') will result in the addition of 'See talk page for details.' to the tag	String	optional
Details	`details`	A sentence explaining more about the problem.	String	optional

v t e Citation and verifiability article maintenance templates
Sourcing	{{Better source}} {{Category unsourced}} {{Uncited category}} {{Circular}} {{Excessive citations}} {{Failed verification}} {{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}} {{User-generated}}
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}} {{Expert needed}} {{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}}
General advice	Citing sources Identifying reliable sources Maintenance template removal Citation needed Find sources Combining sources Referencing styles