Help:Maintenance template removal

This page in a nutshell: If you have the ability, please boldly assist Wikipedia by editing the page any maintenance tag appears on to remedy the issue it flagged! All problems on Wiikpedia are fixed by the efforts of volunteers. If you've read the link in the maintenance template that explains the problem, and have thoroughly fixed it, you may simply remove the maintenance template; it will not be removed automatically.

Many Wikipedia articles contain maintenance templates addressed to a problem with the article and its content. You probably arrived at this page after after clicked on a link in just such a maintenance template, that said "Learn how and when to remove this tag". That is the focus of this page.

Overview

Maintenance templates are never removed automatically. If you fix the issue, the tag will still remain until you or someone else manually removes it. The mechanics of removal is usually as simple as clicking edit at the top of a page or in the section involved, cutting the template, and saving the page.

However, it is not okay to remove maintenance templates until the issue flagged by the template is remedied first – unless it truly did not belong in the first place. Wikipedia works because of the efforts of volunteers like you and their bold edits to assist us in building this encyclopedia project. Fixing problems and then removing maintenance templates when you're done is important in that effort.

Addressing the flagged problem

We do not know which maintenance tag brought you to this page, and thus what problem needs attention. However, every maintenance template will contain one or more links to help pages, policy pages, guidelines, etc. that provide information on the problem the template was placed to flag.

Many common ones include problems with citations and references—because that is the lifeblood of Wikipedia Articles and at the core of all Wikipedia content policies and guidelines, such as notability, verifiability, neutral point of view and no original research.

An example: if the issue was that the article contained no references, and the template was {{Unreferenced}}, often placed by the code {{Unreferenced|date=February 2016}}, then this is what you saw at the top of the article:

safesubst:#invoke:Unsubst||$N=Unreferenced |date=__DATE__ |$B=

Whatever tag brought you here will liewise contains such links. If you are not already familair with what to do, you just read the help pages to know what it is you need to do to take care of the problem.