උදවු:Maintenance template removal
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Many Wikipedia pages display maintenance templates that identify problems. You may have arrived at this help page after clicking a link on a maintenance template saying "Learn how and when to remove this template message".
Maintenance templates are added and removed by volunteers. This help page explains the process for examining and removing such templates.
Overview
[සංස්කරණය]Maintenance templates (or "tags") are not removed automatically. Even if you fix the issue(s) described in a maintenance template, the tag will remain in the article until you or someone else manually removes it. The mechanics of removal are usually as simple as clicking "Edit" at the top of the page or in the section involved (if you're not already in edit mode), removing the code that produces the display of the template, leaving an edit summary and saving the page.
It is not okay to remove maintenance templates until the issue flagged by the template is remedied first—that is, only once the maintenance tag is no longer valid unless it truly did not belong in the first place.
Wikipedia works because of the efforts of volunteers just like you, making bold edits to help build this encyclopedia. Fixing problems and then removing maintenance templates when you are done is important in that effort.
Addressing the flagged problem
[සංස්කරණය]We don't know which maintenance tag brought you to this page, and thus what specific problem needs attention. However, every maintenance template contains links to help pages, policies, guidelines, or other relevant pages that provide information on the problem the template was placed to flag. You will also find guidance on some of the more common templates below.
Many common templates address problems with article citations and references, or their lack – because reliable sourcing is the lifeblood of Wikipedia articles and at the core of all of Wikipedia's content policies and guidelines, such as notability, verifiability, neutral point of view, and no original research. But a host of other issues may be flagged, including tone and style of writing, structure, and formatting, lack of links to or from other articles, compliance with Wikipedia's manual of style and the lack of a lead section.
Please make sure the issue has been resolved before removing the template. That does require some effort on your part—to understand both the problem and how to solve it.
An example
[සංස්කරණය]If the issue flagged by the maintenance template is that the article contains no references, a citation needed template used might be {{Unreferenced}}
– typically placed by the code you would see when wikitext (source) editing: {{Unreferenced|date=සැප්තැම්බර් 2024}}
.
It is important to understand that what you see when reading an article, and what you see when editing it, are different. Thus, the above code, only seen when doing source editing, results in the display of the 'called' template below:
මෙම ලිපිය කිසිදු මූලාශ්රයක් උපුටා දක්වන්නේ නැත. මූලාශ්ර සෙවීම: "Maintenance template removal" – news '• පුවත්පත් • පොත් • scholar • JSTOR (2024 සැප්තැම්බර්) |
This template contains several links, indicated by the words and phrases in blue. Three of these links are to pages that, when explored, provide context and resources for you to understand why the template was placed on the page, and how to address the issue of the article being unreferenced:
- "cite", which links to the content guideline Wikipedia:Citing sources;
- "sources", which links to the policy Wikipedia:Verifiability; and
- "adding citations to reliable sources", which links to a help page providing a how-to guide to the basics of citing references.
Whatever maintenance tag brought you to this help page should likewise contain relevant explanatory links addressed to whatever its issue is. Read these explanatory and contextual pages to learn about the problem and what it is you need to do to take care of it. Again, some of the more common maintenance templates seen are addressed in the specific template guidance section below.
When to remove
[සංස්කරණය]Maintenance templates are not meant to be in articles permanently. Any user without a conflict of interest may remove a maintenance template in any of the following circumstances:
- When the issue has been adequately addressed;
- Upon determining that the issue has been resolved (perhaps by someone else);
- If it reasonably appears that the template did not belong when placed or was added in error. Consider first discussing the matter with the original placer of the template (unless this user is no longer active on Wikipedia). In any case, if the issue appears contentious, seek consensus on the talk page;
- When an article talk page discussion has not been initiated (for templates requesting it);
- When there is consensus on the talk page (or elsewhere) as to how to address the flagged issue, and you are reasonably implementing those changes. (It is good practice to note the location of the consensus in the edit summary accompanying your removal, ideally with a link to the location);
- When it can reasonably be concluded that the template is no longer relevant, such as a
{{Current}}
template appearing in an article that no longer documents a current event; - If the maintenance template is of a type that requires support but is not fully supported. For example, neutrality-related templates such as
{{COI}}
(associated with the conflict of interest guideline) or{{POV}}
(associated with the neutral point of view policy) strongly recommend that the tagging editor initiate a discussion (generally on the article's talk page) to support the placement of the tag. If the tagging editor failed to do so, or the discussion is dormant, and there is no other support for the template, it can be removed; - You may remove a template when according to your best judgment the lack of edits and/or talk page discussion should be interpreted as the issue not worth fixing (as a form of "silent consensus"). Please note there is currently no consensus for general age-related removal of maintenance templates – that is, removing a template purely or chiefly because it is old is not considered a sufficient argument. Exception: removing POV-related templates whose discussions have gone dormant is encouraged, as addressed in the bullet point immediately above;
- Lastly, there are times when a person attempting to address a maintenance template that flags some fundamental matter may find that the issue cannot actually be addressed. For example, if an article is flagged as lacking citations to reliable, secondary sources, written by third-parties to the topic, and a user seeing the maintenance templates discovers that such sources appear not to exist, that usually means the article should be deleted. In such cases, it is not so much that the template does not belong and should be removed, but rather that flagging the page for maintenance will never address the more critical issue that the page itself does not belong on Wikipedia at all.