Template:Clarify/doc

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

Use this template in the body of an article as a request for other editors to clarify text that is difficult to understand. For dealing with dubious information, please use one of the following: {{fact}}, {{better source}}, {{dubious}}. This template is a self-reference and so is part of the Wikipedia project rather than the encyclopedic content.

This is an in-line template, place the template immediately after the material in question, as one would do with a footnote. For example:

This sentence needs clarification.{{Clarify|date=August 2026}}

The above text will cause the tag ^{[clarification needed]} to appear inline. The tag links to Wikipedia:Please clarify for further information.

Adding this template to an article will automatically place the article into Category:Articles needing a sentence or phrase to be explained.

|date=

This template allows an optional date parameter that records when the tag was added. If this template is added without the date parameter, the date parameter will be added soon after by a bot. Alternatively, you may add the date automatically (without requiring bot intervention) by substituting the template. That is, {{subst:clarify}} is equivalent to {{clarify|date=August 2026}}. This technique also works if other parameters - |reason= |pre-text= |post-text= - are given.

|reason=

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: {{Clarify|reason=what the problem is}} (this is preferable to using an HTML <!-- comment --> after the tag, as it is more tidy to keep all of the {{Clarify}}-related code inside the template). If the explanation would be lengthy, use the article's talk page.

As well as being visible in the source code for editors' benefit, the reason 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.

Other

One can specify additional text to appear before and or after the "clarify" tag. For example

{{Clarify|pre-text=?}}

will cause a question mark to appear before "clarify" like this^{[? clarification needed]}, and

{{Clarify|post-text=(complicated jargon)}}

will cause text to appear after "clarify" like this^{[clarification needed (complicated jargon)]}. You can use this feature to link to a discussion on the article's talk page:

{{Clarify|post-text=(see [[Talk:Example#Clarification needed|talk]])}}

• {{What}}

• {{Explain}}
• {{Confusing}}

Other

• Wikipedia:Citing sources
• Wikipedia:Explain jargon
• Wikipedia:Please clarify