Template talk:Clarify

More information?
Is there a reason this template doesn't allow more detail on what is needed to be clarified? E.g. I'd envision using this where the clarificatory detail can be expressed in a way that makes sense to most readers of the page and in a way that is useful to them (even if it's not encyclopedic prose), rather than relegating it to the talk page where most readers will never see it. Thanks. jhawkinson 16:24, 10 March 2007 (UTC)
 * It's an inline template: Too much detail inline and it vandalises the article, unless you do summat clever with popups. Adam Cuerden talk 09:16, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what "do summat clever" means  (I now recognize that as Geordie and Mackem for "something") , but agree with what I believe to be the gist of that.  If such functionality was added it would need to put the text into the hover-over popup feature, not into the rendered text of the template. &mdash;  SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 15:14, 20 March 2007 (UTC)
 * I actually rescind my agreement with putting such a feature into a pop-up. Just use the talk page. — SMcCandlish  Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 21:28, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

I'm marking this as resolved for future reference. The tag these days has been modified a now supports two ways to address this issue: 1) using a reason parameter for a tooltip and 2) using a post-text parameter to display text directly within the tag. Jason Quinn (talk) 20:59, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikiproject Inline templates proposed
WikiProject Council/Proposals. I've been meaning to do this for a while. &mdash; SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;contrib&#93; ツ 16:31, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

Cat. fix
Need to add: (without the nowiki of course). — SMcCandlish &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;   ‹(-¿-)› 03:04, 14 April 2007 (UTC)
 * ✅ Done Harryboyles 09:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

template deleting whitespace
This edit deleted whitespace from the article. Needs fixin! -- Kendrick7talk 05:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

This is redundant
This template is redundant to the earlier unclear. It should be merged/redirected to that template. heqs ·:. 12:18, 25 July 2007 (UTC)


 * Done. I merged here due to better documentation. Adam Cuerden talk 12:40, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Wording
editprotected Request changing Clarify into Clarification needed - to me, the former is a request of the reader, while the latter is a note about the preceding statement. Althepal 18:12, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * There is no consensus for this change yet. Please see discussion on inline template wording style at WT:WPILT. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93;  ‹(-¿-)› 22:34, 29 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Completely agree. "Clarification needed" is much better. Matt 11:26, 21 October 2007 (UTC). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.110.109 (talk)

Request for change to link behaviour
Clicking on "clarify" currently takes you to a whole load of waffle about what "clarify" might mean. Much more useful would be the facility to link to a talk page explanation where you can explain why the text is unclear and what needs to be done to fix it. Propose updating the template to accept the syntax  , so that clicking the link then takes you to target_page. If this parameter is not specified then the template can work as now, so nothing in place will be broken.

Does anyone fancy doing this?

Matt 11:31, 21 October 2007 (UTC).


 * And ideally you should be forced, or at least heavily encouraged, to link to a specific section of the talk page. It's always annoying when you are directed to a discussion and find yourself thrown into the top of a talk page which contains fifty pages of miscellaneous discussions spanning several years... Matt 13:17, 21 October 2007 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.134.55.137 (talk)


 * I agree with Matt's proposal but lack the knowledge to do it. It seems both link and text parameters are ignored, and the best kludge I could work out is in the following Updated documentation section. -Wikianon (talk) 18:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

You can do this now using the post-text parameter like

as explained in the (modern) documentation. This issue is more or less resolved so I will mark it as such. Jason Quinn (talk) 14:36, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

Updated documentation
I updated the doc file for the clarifyme template, in order to better understand what works and what doesn't. Please check if I've got it right. Could anyone explain how the link and title parameters are supposed to be used? I cannot override them with my own, unlike pre- and post_text. For example, the tag at the end of this sentence uses pre and post text the way I would like to use link. -Wikianon (talk) 18:32, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi Wikianon, thanks very much for that info. I think the way I'd use this is probably I'm afraid I am completely clueless about how templates work internally. Matt 22:14, 10 April 2008 (UTC).

Minor change
please place a ", " comma space before the post-text.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Miami33139 (talk • contribs) 12:41, 6 March 2008


 * ❌ please be more specific. What, exactly, needs to be changed?  Also, please sign your talk-page comments. Happy‑melon 19:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

I think User:Miami33139 is pretty clear in what he is trying to say, especially when his edit summary read "The text mashes together", and I also agree with him that the change should be made, though I think the comma is unnecessary (just a space will be sufficient).

The situation is that this template, when the post-text argument is set, gives output that reads something like "clarifyPOSTTEXT". There is no space between the word "clarify" and the post-text. Even if you put the post-text in parentheses, it still looks bad, like "clarify(POSTTEXT)" instead of "clarify (POSTTEXT)". Can one of the people who edit this template please insert a space?

—Lowellian (reply) 13:40, 12 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I think this needs to be fixed in the meta template. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 22:46, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Small addition
Under useful redirects, please add "in what sense". Thanks, Queerudite (talk) 15:25, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Merge vague here
I propose Template:Vague be merged into this article such that vague redirects to clarifyme. Sentences marked 'vague' could just as easily be marked 'clarify', and I prefer the latter because it explains what to do and is a call to action. Could an admin please add the merge tag to the clarify me template? Queerudite (talk) 16:14, 15 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm not averse to the merge, with some commentary. I like the option in 'vague' to add a meaningful tooltip (though this is overridden by some browsers by the internal link).  plus, if the merge goes ahead, I think it might be useful to add more flexibility (like a parameter to specify where the link should point.  I can see some horrible adjustment problems, though - 'vague' only uses positional parameters, so merging it with 'clarifyme' might break a lot of links.  it might be better just to deprecate vague and build its functionality into clarifyme.  -- Ludwigs 2  01:48, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Oppose merge. Vague is more specific; vague shows the reason without having to go to the edit screen. It is simpler to use, more useful, and more likely to get someone to fix the problem. But not everything that needs clarification is vague. Unless and until its functionality is added here, without making this a much more cumbersome and useless template, I will oppose merger. Gene Nygaard (talk) 03:31, 6 February 2009 (UTC)


 * "Vague is more specific..." but since this is nearly a year old I'm taking the notices off. Anyone can merge id they think it helps, but please let me know so that I can update SmackBot. Rich Farmbrough, 21:16 6 February 2009 (UTC).

Edit request
Please update with. Per Template documentation/List Thankyou. -- ṃ• α• Ł• ṭ• ʰ• Ə• Щ•  @ 06:05, 28 April 2008 (UTC)
 * ✅ Happy‑<b style="color:darkorange;">melon</b> 09:38, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

The pre-text parameter
The pre-text parameter should simply be removed, as a) it isn't grammatical to do things like "?clarify", and b) people will do stupid or mistaken things with it. —  SMcCandlish  &#91;talk&#93; &#91;cont&#93; ‹(-¿-)› 12:59, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Confusing redirects
See Template talk:Confusing. --Eleassar my talk 12:33, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Unwarranted capitals
Suggest that [ Clarification needed ] is changed to [ clarification needed ] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.133.247.190 (talk) 21:11, 29 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Agreed, per related templates such as fact. Gary King  ( talk ) 21:31, 29 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes check.svg Done Rjd0060 (talk) 02:41, 30 November 2008 (UTC)

Proposed move
✅ I propose moving this template to Template:Clarify (currently a redirect here), which is a shorter title. I don't see how the "me" adds anything valuable or is in any way necessary. Any thoughts? –B LACK F ALCON  (T ALK ) 18:00, 20 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed and done. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:03, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Discussion section
I think this template should be able to link to a discussion section, similar to Template:Dubious. If I'm not mistaken, this would be:

|post-text= – #|discuss

Thanks. -Verdatum (talk) 15:16, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the template. Thanks, &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Alright, well, lets discuss. I suppose the only ramification is for uses of instantiations of this template that already override the post-text field.  I suppose it would require a bot action to fix.  Alternatively, the template could be altered to take a variable and assign it to post-text only if post-text is non-null.  I find this a little silly though, and only possibly appropriate if post-text is being used for something both beneficial and vastly different from linking to a discussion section.
 * Comments please. -Verdatum (talk) 19:21, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Question
Is this template supposed to be a box that appears at the top/bottom of articles/sections, or is it supposed to be used inline? 69.140.152.55 (talk) 22:57, 16 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Inline. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 18:04, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Move broke template?
When logged in I am now seeing the text "1. REDIRECT Template:Clarify" inside articles that included clarifyme, whereas before the move (or when not logged in), I saw the small superscripted "[clarification needed]". For example see The Golem and the Dancing Girl. What has gone wrong? Does the template namespace have a limitation with redirects? 84user (talk) 18:31, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

It seems to have affected all articles that transcluded "clarifyme". See this list. For me it occurs with Opera and Firefox, with other skins and also with my personal javascript disabled. 84user (talk) 18:45, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

If anyone is interested, this issue appears (to me) to have been resolved. The page was deleted in preparation for the move, and I suspect it just took a moment for the move to promulgate. -Verdatum (talk) 16:02, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Would be nice to be told about these moves, so I can rebuild SmackBot's rules base. Rich Farmbrough, 03:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC).

Wrapping
IMO we should allow the optional messages to wrap. -- Gordon Ecker (talk) 08:00, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

"Clarify|reason=" to be shown on link
I'd like to present this paragraph as an example why I feel we require an update for the Clarify template. The problem is, you as a Japanese speaker cannot see what needs to be clarified, unless you go to edit and read the source. With basic (and W3C compatible) Wiki->HTML rendering we could view reason= instead of a link on MouseOver.

I believe rare people bother to press the edit key just to see a clarification - which may or may not have a reason, the link as it is doesn't tell that, either. A random editor is unable to readily know if he/she actually has the required information, and would propably rather edit the article than seep through source "code". Thus clarify-edits are mainly accidental stumble upons, even if you did leave a reason. In a similar sense, bypassing reason= and adding reason to the article would create unnecessary clutter and make the article harder to read for a common user.

Unfortunately I'm not a programmer so I can't readily create this without further study, nor did I check who can or has the rights to do it (or which concensus is needed). I just feel the template as it is is getting obsolete, as clarify|reason= at the moment doesn't really do anything, while most parameters on most other templates actually do. Perhaps some bold people could put this under their thinking cap :) - aeris   talk  03:02, 25 May 2010 (UTC)


 * NOTE: remade the initiative at Inline Templates Project Talk, it possibly gets more attention there. Please continue discussion at the project pages, thank you - aeris   talk  03:10, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

Date maintenance tags
Hi,

With this template, if you use just "September 2010", a bot comes traipsing along and changes this to "date=September 2010".

But with most (?) other WP problem templates, if you use "date=September 2010", then a bot changes this to "September 2010".

Why is there no consistency? Cheers, Varlaam (talk) 17:00, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm not aware of any such templates where September 2010 isn't the only valid form. Please give examples of bot edits where the "date=" is being removed. -- Red rose64 (talk) 22:20, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
 * I can't find an example of date= deletion, and I can't remember when I last saw that particular behaviour.
 * Here is one odd thing:
 * SmackBot takes
 * and makes out of it.
 * Is that correct?
 * Varlaam (talk) 04:49, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * Yes. has no positional (i.e. unnamed) parameters, and recognises just three named parameters: these are date, pre-text and post-text (the parameter reason mentioned in the documentation is not part of the template coding, but is nonetheless valid). Therefore putting "September 2010" in a positional parameter is not detected by anything. SmackBot operates under the principle that those cleanup templates which have a date parameter (which is most of them), must have that parameter filled in. If no date parameter has been given, or if it is present but empty, SmackBot will create one (if absent), and fill it in with the current month and year. SmackBot does not care about misuse of other parameters, so will not know to look elsewhere for a misplaced date. -- Red rose64 (talk) 14:52, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * So your explanation implies that in instances where a bot is able to insert a date= into an existing parameter, that that template therefore does support unnamed parameters?
 * And in the specific case of Clarify, the resemblance between the parameters September 2010|date=September 2010 is entirely coincidental; this could be Hello World|date=September 2010?
 * Varlaam (talk) 16:35, 12 September 2010 (UTC)
 * If the bot is changing  into , it is just as likely to change   into  . The bot does not care about unnamed parameters, whether these be valid or not, nor whether they contain dates or not: all it cares about is that for certain cleanup templates, including  (which has no positional parameters) and  (which has one positional parameter), a non-blank date must be present in order that the correct categories (in these cases Category:Wikipedia articles needing clarification from September 2010 and Category:Articles needing additional references from September 2010) get populated. Therefore, in the absence of a valid date parameter, the bot will add it - it doesn't go looking for dates among the unnamed parameters before which to insert  . So,   will be changed into  . -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:07, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Editprotected request involving this template
This message is to inform people monitoring this talk page that there is an "editprotected" request involving this and several other templates at Template talk:! cymru.lass (hit me up)⁄(background check) 20:08, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Use of t:Fix-span
Could this template be upgraded to switch to the use of Fix-span ? Two additional parms : Thanks ? --Jerome Potts (talk) 11:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)
 * |content=
 * |span-class=citation-needed-content

Make reason more accessible
Hi, is there any way that the "reason" text can be made more accessible to the person reading the article? It would almost be better if clicking on the link popped up the reason text rather than going to a generic page that 99.9% of the time will shed no light whatsoever on what the alleged problem is. The "pre" and "post" text parameters are fine for very short reasons, but often the reason may be too long to comfortably be accommodated. 109.153.233.36 (talk) 20:43, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * For anything other than a very short reason, you should raise a thread at the article's discussion page. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:05, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. And the pre and post stuff are abominations that should never be used in actual articles. Those are features of the meta-template this inline tag is based on, but they should actually be disable for this tag, because they were not intended for adding blathery, longwinded verbiage to inline cleanup/dispute templates, but for very slight adjustments in template appearance. — SMcCandlish   Talk⇒ ʕ(Õلō)ˀ  Contribs. 21:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Of course, I don't disagree that complicated matters should be discussed on the talk page. However, given that the "reason" parameter exists, and has a useful purpose, to me it seems a no-brainer to offer some better way of viewing it than editing the page and searching amongst wikicode. And, given that the current link to a generic page is essentially useless in my opinion, why not put that link to some good use? By the way, note also that talk page discussions may scroll off into archive oblivion without ever being actioned. I've seen this even with long-standing article banners, to the point where no one knows any more why the banner was added in the first place. 109.153.233.36 (talk) 21:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)

Make reason= visible on hovering the mouse
Would it not be feasible and appropriate to make the text entered after the  parameter visible by hovering the mouse over the clarification needed template? __meco (talk) 10:29, 18 November 2011 (UTC)


 * This, and the alternative of clicking on the link to bring up a popup (rather than going to some pointless generic page), have been suggested quite a few times over a number of years. For whatever reason, nothing has ever been done. 86.171.43.54 (talk) 03:15, 11 December 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Rich Farmbrough, 00:12, 15 March 2012 (UTC).


 * This seemed to work for me for a while, but now it's stopped (Win 7 / IE 9). Not sure why... 86.177.107.165 (talk) 18:49, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Substitution?
Why does one of the examples (the one with the  parameter) include " " which substitutes the template, while the other examples don't? —Kri (talk) 17:39, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Agree that it's confusing. A few weeks ago, somebody amended (and a few other maintenance templates, both inline and banner) so that if they were substituted, two things would happen: (a) the attempted substitution would be turned into a proper transclusion; and (b) the template would be automatically dated. Thus,, when saved, becomes ; and so  is essentially the same as . The first reason is a good one - some templates should never be substituted, and this guards against it; but the second reason merely allows you to be lazy. -- Red rose64 (talk) 18:19, 22 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Huh, how can  become , is there some kind of circle reference going on here or has   been modified specifically for this template? For example,   just becomes   again. —Kri (talk) 19:48, 22 August 2011 (UTC)
 * Exactly so: the point is that the template must appear in the wikicode as and not as the underlying . The template code begins with some code which essentially boils down to "if this template has not been substituted, the template code is, otherwise the template code is ; and in the latter case, has a date been provided - if not, fake one in". Part of it is done by means of , the doc page of which has further information. -- Red rose64 (talk) 20:41, 22 August 2011 (UTC)

Bug in hover text
I finally figured out the problem I noted above with the feature to display the "reason" text when the mouse is hovered over the "clarification needed" link. In fact, what seems to be happening is that the feature fails to work when the "reason" text contains quote marks:

This works: This doesn't work:

Any techie person able to fix this? 86.179.1.81 (talk) 03:26, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * The reason parameter is used to build the HTML code for a tooltip, by making it into the value of a  attribute on a  element. HTML requires that attribute values containing spaces must be enclosed in double quotes, so the  template (which is the core of  and many others} adds a pair of double quotes to enclose the reason. So, you end up with HTML like this:


 * The first is a valid construction; the second is not, because there are four double quotes. If you need to quote something here, use single quotes: -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:27, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh I see, thanks. When quotes do occur, would it be possible to have the template automatically escape them like this?:
 * I think that including quotes in the reason might be not uncommon, since one is likely to be referring to something in the text. Most people probably would not know that this was causing the feature to break. 86.160.209.138 (talk) 19:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * If only we had an efficient inline search-and-replace facility, that would make it so easy to do this; and would help in many other places too. But we haven't, alas - the only ones which we do have ( and ) are incredibly inefficient, and only work under certain circumstances. But your suggestion of  is good to use directly in the reason parameter as a workaround:  -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:43, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK, thanks for your reply and your interest. I think if one is aware of the problem then one could use single quotes, or, if really necessary, the  method. However, the main factor is probably that people would not realise they needed to do either of these things (as I didn't originally ... I just remembered the feature had once worked, then noticed it didn't work on another tag I'd just inserted, and assumed it had randomly stopped working). Anyway, it's not a huge deal in the scheme of things... 86.160.209.138 (talk) 00:36, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool, I had already wondered why the hover text didn't work in a specific case, while it worked in all the others, and suspected a character limit, but there is a simple solution. Thanks for bringing the issue up. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Cool, I had already wondered why the hover text didn't work in a specific case, while it worked in all the others, and suspected a character limit, but there is a simple solution. Thanks for bringing the issue up. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:11, 16 October 2012 (UTC)

It is very possible that all this whole " stuff be obsolete. I have fixed a bug like this in the Template:Fix-span last year. --Nnemo (talk) 15:54, 22 January 2015 (UTC)

Edit request on 19 May 2012
Hi, I would like to request that someone changes the explanation of the "reason" parameter to read as follows. The changes are to document the new mouseover feature. Although I found the apparently editable "doc" subpage, I was prevented from making the edit myself by a "An automated filter has identified this edit as potentially unconstructive" message.

Because it may not be immediately apparent to other editors what about the tagged passage is in need of clarification, it is generally helpful to add a brief reason for the tag:  (this is preferable to using an HTML   after the tag, as it is more tidy to keep all of the -related code inside the template). If the explanation would be lengthy, use the article's talk page.
 * reason:

As well as being visible in the source code for editors' benefit, the  parameter is, if provided, displayed when the mouse is hovered over the "clarification needed" link in the article. For technical reasons, this mouseover feature does not work if the reason text contains double quotes. Use single quotes instead, or use the code  if it is essential to include a double quote.

86.181.204.203 (talk) 17:35, 19 May 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅, thanks. I've also made a note at the edit filter which stopped you from making the edit yourself, suggesting a possible fix. - Kingpin13 (talk) 20:57, 19 May 2012 (UTC)

Confusing examples
One of the examples given in the documentation is. It is unclear what the purpose of "subst" is, or why this example includes it and the others don't. I have used this template several times, with "reason" parameter, and have never used this "subst" thing, nor do I understand if, why, or when I should.

There is some discussion about this above, but it is way over my head. I think that the documention should explain, in very simple terms for ordinary users, why "subst" is needed in the one example and not the others. Otherwise the "subst" should just be deleted. 86.160.87.142 (talk) 01:49, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * It's not needed, but if omitted you should provide your own July 2024 - the template is written so that a  fills that in automatically. So,  is exactly equivalent to  -- Red rose64 (talk) 11:04, 24 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, OK. I think that should be explained. However, there is also a bot ("AnomieBOT") that comes along and adds missing dates to this and other tags. 86.146.108.51 (talk) 19:55, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

Wikilinks in reason= parameter
I noticed some pages using a clarify template like

that displays like which messes up the text after it

and displays extra end brackets (just search for "[This is not a proper reference citation]" without quotes and you'll discover many pages using similar code).

The original code seems to be a substituted template (because similar code is used on many pages), but I can't find it. The problem would be solved if " (see WP:CITE) " is replaced with "(see Wikipedia:CITE)".

displays like which doesn't mess up the text after it.

Can someone find what template that clarify code is from and suggest this change there? - Xin-Xin W. (talk) 01:53, 2 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It was almost eight months ago; your example is from before that fix. -- Red rose64 (talk) 19:22, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

Related discussion about Clarifyref template
There's a discussion related to this template at Template talk:Clarifyref, as and its  variant use, and someone has objected to this. — SMcCandlish Talk⇒ ɖ⊝כ⊙þ Contrib.  22:44, 12 March 2013 (UTC)

Enable unclear-text parameter?
Would it be possible to change the Clarify template to work like Circa, so as to enable the editor adding the template to make part of the article a parameter to make it unambiguous exactly what they had found unclear? That is, just as e.g. currently outputs "c. 1900", so should, I believe, e.g. produce: "lots".  It Is Me Here  t / c 18:29, 24 March 2013 (UTC)

Reword default reason
The current default reason says,
 * The text in the vicinity of this tag needs clarification or removal of jargon

I propose it be changed to,
 * The text near this tag may need clarification or removal of jargon.

The primary reason is to make the text shorter (so the tooltip doesn't wrap as often), easier to understand ("in the vicinity" vs "near"), more accurate ("needs" vs "may"), and to add ending punctuation. Jason Quinn (talk) 02:25, 5 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I've gone ahead and did it. Jason Quinn (talk) 03:41, 6 April 2013 (UTC)

Move template to Clarification needed
Hi… I know this template has had a long history of moves, but for consistency, either this template should be moved to Template:Clarification needed, or Template:Citation needed should be moved to Template:Cite. In other words, either both should have titles that are verbs, or both should have titles that follow the format "… needed". Wikipedia—as much as possible—must be consistent in its format.&emsp;&mdash;  | J  ~  Pæst  |   16:35, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Hmm. I'm not against what you propose. Flyer22 (talk) 16:43, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Template:Citation needed cannot be moved to, because the latter is a redirect to Template:Citation, which has a completely different purpose. Granted, some people do use when they should have used  ; but there are also a lot of people who use  in the full knowledge that it's a shorthand for , and these people would suddenly find that their carefully-constructed reference suddenly started to display <sup class="Template-Fact" style="white-space:nowrap;">&#91;citation needed&#93; instead. -- Red rose64 (talk) 17:38, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * Good point about Template:Cite, Redrose64. Though I was focusing more on the Template:Clarification needed proposal, I obviously didn't think through well enough what JPæst proposes. Flyer22 (talk) 17:55, 18 June 2013 (UTC)
 * This might have implications for a large number of inline templates; see listing at WP:WikiProject Inline Templates. Redirects work just fine in my opinion; consistency is often a goal at Wikipedia, but generally only with regard to things that are directly reader-facing, such as article titles.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  00:06, 28 September 2014 (UTC)

Null edit, please
I think I've just added the TemplateData to the documentation page, but it seems that to get this to take effect in a reasonable timeframe a null edit to the main template page is needed. As its fully protected, would a passing admin please do that edit? Thanks. Pam D  20:06, 24 July 2013 (UTC)
 * It's been done - I asked at ANI. Pam  D  20:43, 24 July 2013 (UTC)

Double quote bug fixed?
In the description of the "reason" parameter, it says:
 * For technical reasons, this mouseover feature does not work if the reason text contains double quotes. Use single quotes instead, or use the code &amp;quot; if it is essential to include a double quote.

This no longer seems to be true so the text should probably be removed.

wikilinks kill reason parameter
If there's a wikilink in the reason parameter, stuff doesn't appear and all the following text for a while is rendered in very small type and not word-wrapped. I'm adding that warning to the doc. Thnidu (talk) 21:20, 3 November 2014 (UTC) PAGE''' ]]) 15:32, 23 November 2015 (UTC)
 * This is normal behaviour for templates based on or : the reason parameter is used to populate the   attribute of a HTML  element; attributes cannot contain links or any other markup. -- Red rose64 (talk) 21:27, 3 November 2014 (UTC)
 * Thank you. That's fine: you know that, and other template mavens know that, and now I know it until I forget it. And since I added the resulting behavior to the documentation, other Wikipedians who need to use the template will know it too.
 * If I sound PO-ed, it's because I wasted about half an hour trying to debug my template call, just because nobody had bothered to document this fact. Thnidu (talk) 00:37, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
 * There are lots of templates built from ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Fix&namespace=10&hideredirs=1&hidelinks=1&limit=500 list]) or  ([//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:WhatLinksHere/Template:Fix-span&namespace=10&hideredirs=1&hidelinks=1&limit=500 list]); it's a difficult task updating the documentation for each individual usage. -- Red rose64 (talk) 09:26, 4 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I added delink to the reason parameter, so this should no longer occur. --Ahecht ([[User_talk:Ahecht|<span style="color:#FFF;background:#00f;display:inline-block;padding:1px 1px 0;vertical-align:-0.3em;line-height:1;font-size:50%;text-align:center;">'''TALK

Edit request on 17 July 2015
A protected redirect, Template:Clarify me needs redirect category (rcat) templates added. Please modify it as follows:


 * from this:

<pre style="font-size:95%;overflow:auto;">
 * 1) REDIRECT Template:Clarify


 * to this:

<pre style="font-size:95%;overflow:auto;">
 * 1) REDIRECT Template:Clarify

Template Redr is an alias for the This is a redirect template, which is used to sort redirects into one or more categories. No protection rcat is needed, and if pp-protected and/or pp-move suffice, the This is a redirect template will detect the protection level(s) and categorize the redirect automatically. (Also, the categories will be automatically removed when and if protection is lifted.) Thank you in advance! – <b style="font-size:85%;color:darkblue;font-family:Segoe Script">Paine</b> 10:40, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
 * WHEN YOU COPY & PASTE, PLEASE LEAVE THE SKIPPED LINE BLANK FOR READABILITY.
 * ✅. Also lowered the protection. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 12:08, 17 July 2015 (UTC)
 * Thank you, Martin! and I hope all is going very well with you and yours! – <b style="font-size:85%;color:darkblue;font-family:Segoe Script">Paine</b> 14:37, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Additional request
You previously lowered the protection of the above redirect to semi-protected. If you'll also lower the protection of the redirect, I'll go ahead and tag that one with the Rcat shell as well.  Paine Ellsworth  put'r there  15:26, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem. ✅ &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 21:38, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
 * And for the gazillionth time, thank you Martin, thanks very much!  Paine Ellsworth   put'r there  23:55, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Change to [clarify]?
In my opinion, the text of this template is a little long. [clarification needed] is wide, taking up a lot of space on the page. Is there any interest in shortening it to [clarify]? Thanks. – Novem Linguae (talk) 14:49, 15 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Is'[clarity needed]' Short Enough between '[clarification needed]' and '[clarify]'? pl2nmOdXlm7ykr0 15:00, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Is the post-text example with a wikilink valid?
The article contains. However, the documentation for post-text has an example with a wikilink. Is that valid? If so, shouldn't it be explicitly documented as an exception? Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 11:57, 14 April 2021 (UTC)
 * The reason and post-text parameters are not the same, they are processed in different ways. Warnings that apply to one do not necessarily apply to the other. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 07:17, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Yes, but the text of the warning at the top of the article is generic; the mention of reason is only given as an example. Shouldn't the documentation of parameters to which the warning does not apply explicitly say so? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chatul (talk • contribs) 13:34, 15 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I've boldly removed the warning against using wikilinks, as it seems to be outdated. The reason parameter is wrapped (since 2015) by a call to delink, so wikilinks there don't cause any issues (they're just ignored). I also tested wikilinks in the text param, and saw no issues. See Template:Clarify/testcases. Colin M (talk) 20:25, 23 April 2021 (UTC)

"Template:What ?" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Template:What ?. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 3 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 15:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

"Template:What does this refer to?" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Template:What does this refer to?. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 June 3 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Elli (talk &#124; contribs) 15:11, 3 June 2021 (UTC)

"Template:Whatthefuck" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Template:Whatthefuck. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2021 December 18 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Hog Farm Talk 07:44, 18 December 2021 (UTC)

Can '[clarification needed]' be Shortened?
to '[clarity needed]'? pl2nmOdXlm7ykr0 14:54, 11 January 2023 (UTC)

Widespread misuse
I've noticed a lot of users using the reason parameter without the correct name (which is ). Can this be fixed using a bot or by renaming the parameter? –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 12:18, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * What are they actually using? The documented parameter is reason, so why do you think that  is correct? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 21:49, 16 January 2023 (UTC)
 * Fixed that mistake. Some users are mistakenly using an unnamed parameter. Unfortunately, I opened a new thread at Village_pump_(idea_lab) due to evidence that this may not be specific to Template:Clarify. –<b style="color:#77b">Laundry</b><b style="color:#fb0">Pizza</b><b style="color:#b00">03</b> ( d c̄ ) 05:15, 17 January 2023 (UTC)
 * incorrectly resolves as, but using = instead of =, correctly resolves as , although I would have preferred using reason , which resolves as reason. There is no need to resort to <code ></code>.
 * Back to the original issue, clarify has no valid positional parameters, only the keyword parameters date, reason and text. Were someone to assume that there were positional equivalents, why would they assume that the first was an alias to reason rather than to, e.g., date? --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 16:18, 17 January 2023 (UTC)

New parameter "discuss"
I'd like to propose supporting a "discuss" parameter, e.g., would link to the present section. fgnievinski (talk) 19:12, 9 March 2023 (UTC)
 * I agree, and would also like to see an error message from 1, asking whether, e.g., date, reason, was intended.. --Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 14:27, 10 March 2023 (UTC)

Somehow link to a topic with discussion might be usable
For short reasons current state is better than adequate.

If a discussion is necessary, a link to (already existing or newly created) topic on talk-page might be welcome and useful.
 * {{clarification needed|}October 2018|reason=What is the relevance of this to the definition?|date=October 2018}} here is an example (template call is malformed, I copied it as it is, I'll correct that as needed when I succeed to get to relevant sources, think it through and change the relevant part of the article).
 * The problem of providing necessary clarification is that:
 * definition is (both time and place) context depending
 * the affected part of the article could (and should) be written better, but not removed; if it were removed the initiative to make it better might never reappear, but that's for discussion on that talk-page
 * WP has essays about when alternative definitions should be part of wiktionary (and just link to a topic there included in the WP article) and when alternative definitions should be discussed in the article.  That should IMO be discussed on the talk page for that article, and a link to appropriate section there would be welcome to be added to the template (or near it) in the article.
 * I was looking for a way to do that, but couldn't find it in current template documentation; either it doesn't exist yet, or is not visible well enough in the documentation.


 * Ideal IMO would be a link to a talk page topic (and maybe creating it if it doesn't exist yet), and a link available there to the place where template is in the article, but that might be overdoing it (search for unachievable perfect instead of creating something good enough).


 * What is needed (IMO) is a possibility (a new named parameter?) to show a link to a discussion section on talk page (where links to other discussions could be provided if needed).


 * For the idea, this parameter could be something like Talk= or TalkSection= . The first would be short enough and, if instruction and example in the template doc is clear and good enough, unambiguous enough (IMO).

I understand that clarify is realized through other templates that could/would be affected, so change is not simple. But other templates of similar type might benefit too if a parameter with a link to talk-page and/or it's section were possible. If such possibility already exists elsewhere, it might be much easier to add something like that here too. Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 05:34, 27 April 2024 (UTC)
 * Per the last example at Template:Clarify, you can use e.g. . -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 10:22, 27 April 2024 (UTC)

Dutch Wikipedia
Hi. The Dutch Wikipedia does not have this useful template. Is there a generally accepted procedure I should follow to request it for that edition? Should I do this at the English Wikipedia or the Dutch Wikipedia? Also, am I expected to first convince Dutch Wikipedia editors of its usefulness? Thanks. --Talky Muser (talk) 16:55, 1 July 2024 (UTC)