Template:Use mdy dates/doc

Usage
To promote consistent date formatting, place this template with other maintenance tags near the top of articles that use the  date format (below hatnotes, but above infoboxes, as per the Manual of Style). Use the parameter  for the month and year that an editor or bot last checked the article for inconsistent date formatting and fixed any found.

Wikipedia articles that use  ("American") dates, either because of the first main contributor rule or close national ties (see Manual of Style/Dates and numbers, shortcut: WP:MOSNUM), are systematically tagged with Use mdy dates over time. The template is invisible except in edit mode.

The template lets editors know which date format to use when adding or editing dates in an article. It also facilitates article maintenance by enabling bots to recognize use of this format, and by adding the article to the hidden category called Use mdy dates.

'''Use of this template is part of a continuing effort to monitor the date formats used in articles, to assist in maintaining consistent formatting within an article. It is not a temporary "cleanup" template. Therefore, do not remove the template without valid reason, such as a determination the article uses or should use a different date format.'''

After being tagged, periodic script or bot runs clean up formats, correcting any new introductions since its last visit, and updating the date in the Use mdy dates template.

The dmy and mdy templates have almost always been used to indicate date styles in the body of the articles; although it may also indicate the flavour of dates in reference sections or parts thereof. Therefore, this template notice ought to be read in conjunction with the blurb at Date formattings. MOSNUM script documentation may also be relevant to those interested.

When a citation style does not expect differing date formats, it is permissible to normalize publication dates to the article body text date format, and/or access/archive dates to either, with date consistency being preferred (see MOS:DATEUNIFY).

Auto-formatting citation template dates
Citation Style 1 and 2 (collectively cs1|2) templates automatically render dates (date, access-date, archive-date, etc) in the style specified by this template. Because it is allowed by WP:MOSDATES, the cs1|2 templates can automatically format dates in a variety of styles. Editors may choose how cs1|2 templates render dates by the use of &lt;keyword>.

An example is given at.

Nota bene: cs1|2 auto-date formatting does not apply when previewing an article section that does not contain a template. When editing with the visual editor, changes to this template do not take effect until the page is saved.

Syntax
Notes:
 * The template should be inserted in one of the first few lines of code of an article (to improve performance).
 * Do not use redirects of this template, because otherwise its presence in an article may not be recognized by date formatting templates and bots. (There are a number of "legacy redirects" which are still supported at least by CS1/CS2 citation templates, but they should be changed to direct invocations of this template, also for performance reasons.)

TemplateData
{	"format": "inline", "description": "This template should be placed near the top of articles that use the mmmm d, yyyy date format.", "params": { "date": { "label": "Date", "description": "The month and year that the article was last checked for inconsistent date formatting. Example: 'June 2013'; may use '' template instead", "type": "string", "required": false, "autovalue": " ", "suggested": true }	} }

Wrongly tagged?
If you determine that an article is incorrectly tagged with this template, you should replace this template with the correct one or at least remove it. This will prevent scripts and bots from applying the "wrong" format.