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Link to Template As of archive discussion about the creation of this template

The documentation says that if the day is ommited then it defaults to the first of the month. However if the day is actually omitted it breaks the template. For example when I tried to enter ((Update after|2008|11)) the preview showed this broken form:

Rambo's Revenge (How am I doing?) 14:14, 21 March 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

What is the best way to use this template if the date is not known?

My specific example is a UK general election. There has to be an election by the end of next year, but it could be any time from now (May 2009) to December 2010. At the moment I am using ((update after|2010)). This is not ideal because from January next year, the dated info message will be showing, although that will be incorrect until the election takes place. Conversely, it is possible an election may be called before the end of this year — articles would be out of date, but this template would not have triggered.

I want to do something like this: ((update after|UK general election date)) where the election date is held in its own template.

Any suggestions? MortimerCat (talk) 15:47, 24 May 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have started a discussion about changing the style of categorization of pages to dates in this template on Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Inline Templates#Template:Update after. I think that categories are better suited for this purpose than redlinks, which also cause ugly red question marks after this template. Svick (talk) 11:18, 20 September 2009 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Saying "dated info" could be construed as containing the stamp of a date inhered, the info is 'dated', I prefer the old inline template redirected to this one, because it's more expository; "anachronism", which is more true to the context. 74.209.54.156 (talk) 06:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Another suggestion: "outdated info" would be unambiguous. Chris the speller ^yack 17:47, 7 February 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Earlier this year I added ((dated info|date=March 2011)) to an article, but a bot changed it to ((dated info|2011|3)). Clearly the bot and I were thinking at cross purposes. My intention was to indicate when the template was added. This is what date means in most other maintenance templates, and for all I know is probably used frequently even where it isn't documented or programmed to do anything for the particular template. This begs the question of who was in the wrong - the bot for second-guessing what I was doing, or me for adding a date parameter to a template that doesn't officially have such a parameter? — Smjg (talk) 13:26, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The reason is simple enough. There is no date parameter in this template. Because it is not relevant for maintenance purposes when the tag was added, only when the update becomes necessary. Debresser (talk) 19:06, 14 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

So if I add this template to a piece of information that is (or seems to be) already out of date, should I put the date when seemed to be last up to date, or no date at all? — Smjg (talk) 11:01, 17 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

You should add the date, but not with |date= (which is used to specify when the template was added to the article), but in the format ((Update after|year|month|day)), specifying when the information you tag became or will become outdated. This is also indicated in the template's documentation, btw. Debresser (talk) 16:52, 17 September 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Currently when clicking on the inline link "dated info" it takes you automatically to the talk page section "#obsolete" .. this should be customizable since sometimes there is pre-existing discussion under a different talk page section header. Green Cardamom (talk) 04:36, 14 December 2011 (UTC)Reply[reply]

See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Gloucester_County_College&oldid=472132176. Allens (talk) 21:51, 19 January 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I noticed a banner option was added on 17 October 2006 (mentioned in the Banner section above), but it was removed again on 2 November 2009 because it was "deprecated". Is there some way to have this option added again? At present there is no way to add a banner to an article that will appear after a certain date alerting out of date of date information (and adding it to relevant categories). A banner like this would be a lot more useful than ((Update)), as it allows editors writing articles about information that will become outdated at a certain date to pre-emptively tag them, rather than expecting editors to tag them later, when they could simply update them anyway. TimofKingsland (talk) 08:00, 27 July 2012 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The documentation says "use Update after only in exceptional cases". What does this mean, and why is it said? It could mean "use only when it is the correct template to use, not when it is inappropriate" or "it shouldn't be used too much as it adds too many articles to the list of those to be checked". For example, in spring 2014 I have added an "update after 1 Dec 2014" to an article that mentions a public hearing to be held "later in the autumn of 2014". If anyone reads this in 2015, the article is technically incorrect, but it's obviously out of date so displaying "outdated information" can be said to be redundant. Should the update after template be used in this sort of case? (If so, I'd reword the documentation to remove "use only in exceptional cases".) Pol098 (talk) 18:06, 14 June 2014 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I also found this section unclear and discouraging.

What I hope this section actually means is that use update after only if you cannot instead avoid using the phrase entirely, as recommended by Wikipedia:Avoid statements that will date quickly.

Unfortunately as currently written it is difficult to know what exceptional is supposed to mean. The way I read it now, there is a huge gap between difficult to avoid phrases that will soon be out of date, and exceptional events that will be out of date, so ultimately the documentation reads like "don't use this template". -- 109.79.87.162 (talk) 00:03, 23 August 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I have tried using this tag a couple of times in the last week, and its insertion does not currently result in the appearance of the standard tag prose and link (regardless of how and where I am editing). I therefore judge it nonfunctional. I am using ((Update inline)) until the issue is resolved. Cheers. Le Prof. 50.179.252.14 (talk) 19:01, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Perhaps you don't understand how it works. It should not have any output as long as the date hasn't arrived, and after the date arrives, it has as output the addition of a maintenance category. I just checked it, and it works fine. Debresser (talk) 20:59, 5 April 2016 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Debresser: welp, it's throwing an error: Expression error: Unexpected < operator which was mentioned six years ago on this here talk page, and it's giving that error despite correct usage on all the pages where it's used. Going back several revisions, I still found the same error printed for its preview. 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 04:32, 18 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

I checked how it works on pages, and it works as a charm. Please refer me to an article where it doesn't work. Debresser (talk) 15:23, 18 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

And now it works fine, everywhere. I have no idea what happened - caching? 2600:8800:1880:91E:5604:A6FF:FE38:4B26 (talk) 16:07, 18 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

The error was probably caused by this edit, which was then reverted. Discussion seems to be at Module talk:Age#Allow julianday month offsets to permit use in JULIANDAY. Anomie⚔ 19:55, 18 June 2018 (UTC)Reply[reply]

@Anomie: It looks like your last edit removed the code for the category field (((#if:(({4|))}|[[Category:(({4))}]]))) Categories don't appear to be working. Any chance you could have a look at it please. Thanks - X201 (talk) 20:25, 6 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 Done Should work now. Anomie⚔ 22:11, 6 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Thanks - X201 (talk) 14:37, 8 February 2019 (UTC)Reply[reply]

Would it be wise to add |year=, |month=, etc. as aliases? There are some uses of this template where I hope that editors (in some cases novices) will increment the year in this template after updating a field, and it might make it easier for them to figure out what to do if the parameters were labeled. ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 04:16, 21 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

(^_^)b Sounds good, it seems like a helpful change to me. (Is there a better way of tagging such a 'recurring update' of information?) Shells-shells (talk) 01:49, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]

 Done ((u|Sdkb)) ^talk 18:54, 23 August 2023 (UTC)Reply[reply]