Template:Promotional/doc

This is a documentation subpage for Template:Promotional.
It may contain usage information, categories and other content that is not part of the original template page.

This template is used on approximately 18,000 pages and changes may be widely noticed. Test changes in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

Shortcuts

If you plan to make breaking changes to this template, move it, or nominate it for deletion, please notify Twinkle's users and maintainers at Wikipedia talk:Twinkle as a courtesy, as the standard installation of Twinkle adds and removes this template. Thank you!

When to use

Add this to articles that need help from other editors because in whole or part they are written in a promotional manner. For example, they may tell readers to buy the company's product, provide price lists, give links to online sellers, or use unencyclopedic or meaningless buzzwords.

The template is for Wikipedia articles that in whole or part have been made into public relations documents or brochures, with content that portrays an issue, a product, an organization, or a person in an unfairly positive or negative light.

The issue the template addresses is the policy WP:PROMO, which forbids content that reflects:

Advocacy, propaganda, or recruitment of any kind: commercial, political, scientific, religious, national, sports-related, legal, or otherwise. An article can report objectively about such things, as long as an attempt is made to describe the topic from a neutral point of view.
Self-promotion. This needs to go well beyond Wikipedia editors believing that the subject created or write the article, and then deciding that the mere existence of the article helps the subject promote themselves.
Advertising, marketing or public relations. Information about people, organizations, issues, and products must be written in an objective and unbiased style, free of puffery.

If an article appears to be any of the above, the template may be appropriate. This is not a {{COI}} tag. Decide whether to add the template based on the article's contents, and not based on your belief about who wrote the article. If you add the template, you should be able to identify specific, correctable content that tends to "sell" the subject.

This template adds articles to Category:Articles with a promotional tone.

How to use

Articles

Place {{Promotional|date=November 2024}} at the top of the article.
You can adjust the default "article" text with something more specific, such as: {{Promotional|article's "Controversy" section|date=November 2024}}.

Sections

To mark specific sections instead of the whole article, place {{Advert section|date=November 2024}} at the top of the section.

Remarks

To replace the text "promotional content", you may use {{Promotional|article/section|yourtext}} or {{Promotional|2=yourtext}} or {{Promotional|type=yourtext}}

TemplateData

This is the TemplateData for this template used by TemplateWizard, VisualEditor and other tools. See a monthly parameter usage report for Template:Promotional in articles based on its TemplateData.

TemplateData for Promotional

Template for articles with promotional content

Template parameters
This template prefers inline formatting of parameters.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Scope (e.g. section)	`1`	This parameter allows an editor to replace the default word "article" with another word, usually "section" Default article	Content	optional
Type	`type` `2`	To replace the text "promotional content" with another phrase Default promotional content Auto value	Content	optional
Month and year	`date`	Month and year of tagging; e.g., 'January 2013', but not 'jan13' Auto value `{{subst:CURRENTMONTHNAME}} {{subst:CURRENTYEAR}}`	String	suggested