Template talk:DATE

Template:DATE is permanently protected from editing because it is a heavily used or highly visible template. Substantial changes should first be proposed and discussed here on this page. If the proposal is uncontroversial or has been discussed and is supported by consensus, editors may use {{edit template-protected}} to notify an administrator or template editor to make the requested edit. Usually, any contributor may edit the template's documentation to add usage notes or categories.

Any contributor may edit the template's sandbox. This template does not have a testcases subpage. You can create the testcases subpage here.

Document how to substitute[edit]

Could an admin please add to the template page some documentation about the proper usage for inserting this template in another template using subst:? The line that exists now, "It must be subst'd.", is a bit cryptic except to those Wikipedians who already know how to do it. I know how, so I am not asking for myself. It would also be helpful to add a template at the top explaining this template's protection status and rationale. Thanks. Finell (Talk) 19:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Feel free to add anything else on the new subpage. --- RockMFR 22:15, 28 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks very much for this and the other maintenance! (Talk) 02:30, 29 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Use ISO 8601 formats[edit]

Shouldn't this template use ISO 8601 formats like YYYY-MM (2008-07) for the current version July 2008? All template parameters should use official standards.

I.e. change the code form

date={{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTYEAR}}

to

date={{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTYEAR}}-{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>padleft:{{<includeonly>subst:</includeonly>CURRENTMONTH}}|2|0}}

Created {{DATE2}} for illustrating this. Tested it here: User:Nsaa/DATE2. See also {{CURRENTISODATE}} for more on ISO dates. Nsaa (talk) 12:25, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

{{editprotected}} Changes as shown above. Nsaa (talk) 21:08, 18 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Not done. Please propose this somewhere better watched (WP:VPT would probably be good), changes like this to a meta-template such as this have the potential to cause massive breakage if the possible effects aren't investigated. Mr.Z-man 00:23, 19 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Added a question at Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical). Looks like a change may be accepted iff renaming of categories are carried out? Nsaa (talk) 20:15, 11 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Add category[edit]

Can somebody please add the category Category:Templates that must be substituted to this article. Debresser (talk) 20:17, 8 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Unexpected results[edit]

(See this bot correction) - Is this template not supposed to work with the {{dead link}} template? -- WikHead (talk) 19:14, 18 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Protected edit request on 11 July 2014[edit]

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

Please replace the contents of this template with the contents of the sandbox so that this template can be properly substituted and not break article pages when used to add a date to citations. — {{U|Technical 13}} ^{(e • t • c)} 17:23, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Not done: I'm pretty sure this won't make any difference as coded: it's a known problem with MediaWiki that subst: doesn't work inside <ref>...</ref> tags. Therefore, I'd like to see some testcases that demonstrate that the proposed change fixes the problem. --Redrose64 (talk) 18:33, 11 July 2014 (UTC)[reply]