 | This template should notbesubstituted. |
 | Use this template sparingly It should only be placed in citation templates that are missing a date but should have one because the source cited is not properly identified without it. For example, most books and non-news Web pages are only published with a year as the publication date, and should not be tagged with this template. (See {{year missing}} for missing publication years). |
{{Date missing}} (or{{date?}} for short) is an inline cleanup template flagging a broken source citation that is missing the date of publication of the cited source (or at least the specified fact that date is not available). "Date" here usually means "more information than just the year".
Many references are added with an access-date= but no publication date. This may be due to the use of citation tools that cannot identify a page's date, but of course the access-date= is always today. The lack of a publication date is clearly wrong, an error; but {{Citation}} documentation says clearly "Access dates are not required for links to published research papers, published books, or news articles with publication dates."
Do not place this template in any Citation Style 1 citation's |date= parameters. All text in |date= parameters is made part of the citation's COinS metadata. The |date= parameters should include date data only.
For all free-form and {{cite xxx}}-type template references ({{cite web}}, {{cite book}}, {{citation}}, etc.), place {{date missing}} at the end of the citation, typically just before the ending </ref> tag
Do not remove the template without fixing the problem one of the following ways.
|date=D[D] Monthname YYYY|date=Monthname D[D], YYYY|date=Monthname YYYY|year=:
|year=YYYY|date= not |year= parameter for most applications.|date=Winter 2009/2010|date=March/April, 2010|date=1st Quarter, 2010{{cite xxx}}-series template, as appropriate for the work in question.|year=2006–2010 [copyright date]|date= parameter, then go ahead:|date=2006–2010 [copyright date]|date=23 March 2003 [last updated]|date=ca. September 15, 2009|date=date unspecified|date=[date unspecified]No date specified.|year= parameter.|date=none, |date=unknown or anything else vague; any implication other than that the source itself did not specify a date is simply a signal to other editors to re-tag it with {{date missing}}.{{cite xxx}}-type template's documentation for use of |archiveurl= and |archivedate= parameters). If no archive copy is available, use {{dead link}} after the citation, but leave {{date missing}} as well.TemplateData for Date missing
Use this inline template before a citation's </ref> tag to indicate that the citation is missing a full date where one is warranted. Not for use on events missing their date of occurrence; for this, use the template {{when}}.
| Parameter | Description | Type | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month and year | date | Month and year of tagging; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13'
| String | suggested |
