Template:Expand section

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This is the {{Expand section}} message box template.

Usage

Place this template at the beginning of article sections that need expansion, after that section's title. You can use this template in the Main/Article or Wikipedia namespaces.

As of August 2016, this template only uses the "article message box" style, but this will be fixed in the future.

Recommended use is with a talk page link explaining what is needed and especially any justification for your judgement.

Note: {{sect-stub}} is a shortcut used for consistency with other cleanup templates.

{{sect-stub
 | reason = (or Arg1)
 | small  = no
 | talksection = (LINK, displays only if small is 'no')
 | date   = Month YYYY
 | 
}}

or inline short form

{{sect-stub | reason = (or Arg1) | small  = no | talksection= | date= }}

3.)  You can use this template without any parameters: (But a BOT edit will occur if you do not add the date as hereafter, so please do so.)

{{Expand section}}

4.)  You can also use the current month and year as a parameter, which adds the page to a template-related category's sub-category sorted by time:

{{Expand section|date=July 2017}}

or

{{Expand section|{{subst:DATE}}}}

See the section Categorisation for more information.

There are bots that edit the pages and add the date= parameter if you forget to do it.

You can add a |1= (a.k.a.  |with= or |for=) parameter with an explanation of what expansion the section needs, and you can of course use the date parameter at the same time:

{{Expand section|1=examples and additional citations|date=July 2017}}

When you need to raise multiple yet simply explainable expansion issues, you can make a bullet list within the template:

{{Expand section|1=<nowiki />
* Career from 1952 to 1960
* Final days after 1972 retirement
|{{subst:DATE}}}}

(The <nowiki /> is required or the first item may not display correctly.)

However, if you want to raise more than a few simple points, your issues would better be raised in a new section of the talk page.

Categorisation

When {{Expand section}} is used without a date= parameter in an article in the Main/Article namespace, the article is placed in Category:Articles to be expanded. Once a bot or an editor adds the parameter, the article is placed in a category whose name reflects the date given. For example, if you use the parameter, date=July 2017, the article will be added to Category:Articles to be expanded from July 2017.

No matter what parameters you use with this template, it also adds the article to Category:All articles to be expanded.

Choosing the right template

For an empty section

If the section is completely empty, you should use {{Empty section}} instead.

The exception would be an empty section used for references, as explained in the following section.

For a section for references (aka footnotes ) and sources

When the section you think needs expansion is a section for citing sources, use either {{No footnotes}} or {{More footnotes}} instead of {{Empty section}} or {{Expand section}}.

Note: Unlike the other templates mentioned, these footnote/reference templates should go at the beginning of the page, rather than the beginning of the section.

In the Main/Article namespace, citing sources is an important part of the article, done using the tags, <ref></ref>, which in turn are collected and formatted into text in the section containing {{Reflist}} or <references />. This section (or sub-section, as might be done if the sources are listed separately) is most often named References, but can have other names.

If the article has a section that contains either {{Reflist}} or <references />, the section can still appear blank on the saved, rendered page if the article has no text within <ref></ref> tags. Such a section is still considered blank, even though the template or tag wikitext can be seen in Edit mode, so use {{No footnotes}}.

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 Expand section

Can be placed at the beginning of article sections that need expansion, after the section title.

Template parameters

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
reason	1withfor	Reason the template was added, an explanation of what expansion the section needs. A bulleted list with lines beginning '*' can be given. Default empty Example empty Auto value empty	String	optional
talksection	talksectiondiscusstalk	A section heading in the talk page where the issue is discussed. Note: The talksection parameter only displays if the parameter small is set to 'no'. Default empty Example empty Auto value empty	String	optional
date	date	The month and year the template was added, e.g. 'August 2013'. Default empty Example empty Auto value empty	String	optional
small	small	By default the template will be displayed in a small size. This can be changed by setting small to no. Not recommended in articles. Default empty Example empty Auto value empty	String	optional

See also

• {{Clarify}} and {{Elucidate}} (both inline)
• {{Expand list}}
• {{Empty section}}
• {{Incomplete}}
• {{Missing information}}