Template messages (maintenance tags, cleanup tags, cleanup messages) may be added to articles needing cleanup. Their purposes are to foster improvement of the encyclopedia by alerting editors to changes that need to be made. Cleanup tags are meant to be temporary notices that lead to an effort to fix the problem, not a permanent badge of shame to show that you disagree with an article, or a method of warning readers about an article.
Unless otherwise noted, cleanup messages should be placed at the top of the page, before other templates, images, or infoboxes, but after hatnotes (see Wikipedia:Hatnote § Placement). Cleanup messages should be placed directly on the article or file, not on its talk page. Certain tags can be placed at the beginning of an individual section, and others can be placed within the text itself (inline).
A date parameter is added by a bot, or you can add it yourself with |date=September 2024.
Before you tag an article, please remember the following:
Before placing templates on a page it is worthwhile to cast a critical eye over the page to determine whether indeed it should be included in Wikipedia. Some articles can be tagged for speedy deletion or nominated for a deletion discussion at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion.
On pages that have received little attention from editors or readers, cleanup templates can be used as a way to call attention to problems that need to be addressed by editors. Editors who want to help address these problems should look through the various cleanup categories such as maintenance and articles with content issues and try to address the problems so that the templates can be removed. Editors who frequently tag articles should also address the backlogs.
On pages that are being edited by a number of users, cleanup templates are used to inform readers and editors of ongoing discussions and attempts to fix the problems on the page. Such templates can be used to attract uninvolved users to discussions and cleanup efforts, and they can also serve as a warning to casual readers that the article may have problems and be subject to noticeable changes. In general, an editor who places a template message to indicate a problem like this should explain their rationale fully on the talk page of the article. If the consensus of the other editors is that there is a problem or an editorial dispute that deserves such a clean-up template, then the editors should work to fix the problem as quickly and cleanly as possible so the template message can be removed. If the consensus is that there is no problem, then the message can be removed immediately. For heavily monitored articles, please do not add or remove template messages of this sort without using the talk page.
Many of these cleanup tags require you to place |article as the first parameter when you use the tag at the top of an article. When you want the template to refer to just one section, however, you replace |article with |section (where the | is a pipe key | found on most keyboards as a shift-backslash ⇧ Shift+\. See the specific template below to determine if such "section use" is supported and appropriate.
If too many tags are put at the top of an article, the article can become eclipsed by the tags, especially with short or stub articles. Consider consolidating the tags into {{multiple issues}}.
Do not use this as the only message box on the article or section; it should be used with at least two other message boxes sandwiched inside it.
Use one of these general tags when none of the more specific tags fits.
Some articles just need someone with a good grasp of editing technique to give them a once-over.
These templates are all "general cleanup" templates, but tie into a specific subject matter or WikiProjects.
Articles occasionally contain content which is otherwise valid, but appears unrelated to the nominal topic of the article.
For tips on requesting images see: Wikipedia:Requested pictures.
Most of these issues are covered in the main Manual of Style.
There are also tags available for:
Wikipedia:Backlog lists tasks that should be done to improve Wikipedia (assuming the cleanup templates were placed correctly). Helping reduce backlogs is an important issue, so please feel free to help out.
Click any linked number for that category's articles prioritized by their number of incoming links.