Wikipedia:As of

The as of technique is a way to deal with Avoid_statements_that_will_date_quickly. Some articles have information that is valid only for a specific moment in history. If you suspect that the article will become significantly out of date in years to come, and want to ensure that people will update it, please include a link As of nnnn, with year of validity. That way, it will be easy to find articles with possibly outdated information. More detailed tags are possible, and perhaps even sometimes desirable. However, the year will generally be sufficient and is desirable for simplicity's sake. For more information, please visit As of. This technique is considered to be a bit clumsy and to violate Wikipedia linking conventions, but it will do until someone comes up with a better idea, perhaps using a template.

Each non-contiguous statement in an article that may date quickly should be so linked, even if there are several such statements that link to the same year. Otherwise, it is possible that when one statement is updated, other statements in the article might be overlooked, and no one will realize that that they need to be checked also.

A separate list using a different mechanism is at Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating.

Usage guidelines

As of should be used only in cases where an article is intended to provide current information. It should not be used for historical information (a snapshot of a point in time) which is not intended to be updated. For example, an article which mentions population changes in Toledo, Ohio should not use as of for official U.S. census figures for each decade.

As of can be used with future dates for events which are anticipated but not definite, or for recurring events, or when the tense needs to be changed. For example, the year of return of Halley's comet can reasonably be expected to be definite, but it is recurring, so the article will eventually, if Wikipedia (or humanity itself) is still around at the time, need to be updated. Here are two ways to use as of with future dates:

Construction is to finish in 2008 and will cost 28 billion USD.

As of 2006, construction is expected to finish in 2008 and cost 28 billion USD.

The second case above can be used if there is an expectation that the estimated completion date will have changed by 2007.

In some cases, using the literal text as of may be clumsy; feel free to use a piped link to show different wording, such as:

The next U.S. Presidential election will be in 2008.

If you wish to have a link to the year, then link it separately, and use a piped link to hide the year in the as of link, as in:

''The next U.S. Presidential election will be in 2008.

Note that in many cases, one will not want a direct link to the year.

For future dates, you may want to predate in certain cases, by indicating the year which the article should be checked after. For example, the examples above might be better done as:

Construction is to finish in 2008 and will cost 28 billion USD.

The next U.S. Presidential election will be in 2008.

Transient figures and associated dates that are typically updated by bots, such as census figures, may be specially formatted; check around before updating pages which have information from census documents.

The "as of" page format

Each as of page redirects to the year in question, and includes a message describing its purpose. The redirects are marked with so as to allow locating the articles easily by clicking Whatlinkshere/Template:R for as of. Code the "as of nnnn" page like this:

REDIRECT nnnn

Please add new "as of" pages to the list below.

List of "As of" pages

Links which have (empty) after them were linked to from here only as of October 28, 2004

As of 1900 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1900
As of 1911 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1911 (data from 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica)
As of 1935 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1935
As of 1938 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1938
As of 1975 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1975 (empty)
As of 1978 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1978
As of 1979 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1979
As of 1980 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1980 (empty)
As of 1981 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1981 (empty)
As of 1983 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1983 (includes data from 1983 Doornbos and Bender via Ethnologue)
As of 1985 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1985 (empty)
As of 1986 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1986 (empty)
As of 1987 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1987 (empty)
As of 1989 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1989
As of 1990 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1990
As of 1991 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1991
As of 1992 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1992
As of 1993 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1993
As of 1994 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1994
As of 1995 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1995
As of 1996 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1996
As of 1997 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1997
As of 1998 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1998
As of 1999 Whatlinkshere/As_of_1999
As of 2000 Whatlinkshere/As_of_2000 (includes data from U.S. April 1 2000 Census)
As of 2001 Whatlinkshere/As_of_2001 (includes data from the Australian 2001 Census, Canadian 2001 Census and Indian 2001 Census)
As of 2002 Whatlinkshere/As of 2002
As of 2003 Whatlinkshere/As of 2003
As of 2004 Whatlinkshere/As of 2004
As of 2005 Whatlinkshere/As of 2005
As of 2006 Whatlinkshere/As of 2006
As of 2007 Whatlinkshere/As of 2007

Another efficient way to find newly created "as of" pages is to use Allpages/As of.

Deprecated "As of" pages

As of (month) (year) form is deprecated and should be avoided, as described above. Adjust articles to the standard form, where found. To link a statement which may be specific to a month or date, code as:

As of August 2004, which produces As of August 2004

Deprecated pages:

Gourt Home::Gourt :: Wikipedia:As of

Usage guidelines

The "as of" page format

List of "As of" pages

Deprecated "As of" pages

See also