Template:Cite tweet

Template documentation[view] [edit] [history] [purge]

Tweets are usually unacceptable as sources. Tweets and other self-published material may be acceptable if the conditions specified at WP:SPS or WP:TWITTER are met. For further information, see the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy and the Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources guideline.

Citation Style 1 templates

{{Cite arXiv}}	arXiv preprints
{{Cite AV media}}	audio and visual media
{{Cite AV media notes}}	AV media liner notes
{{Cite bioRxiv}}	bioRxiv preprints
{{Cite book}}	books and chapters
{{Cite CiteSeerX}}	CiteSeerX papers
{{Cite conference}}	conference papers
{{Cite document}}	short, stand-alone, offline documents
{{Cite encyclopedia}}	edited collections
{{Cite episode}}	radio or TV episodes
{{Cite interview}}	interviews
{{Cite journal}}	academic journals
{{Cite magazine}}	magazines, periodicals
{{Cite mailing list}}	public mailing lists
{{Cite map}}	maps
{{Cite medRxiv}}	medRxiv preprints
{{Cite news}}	news articles
{{Cite newsgroup}}	online newsgroups
{{Cite podcast}}	podcasts
{{Cite press release}}	press releases
{{Cite report}}	reports
{{Cite serial}}	audio or video serials
{{Cite sign}}	signs, plaques
{{Cite speech}}	speeches
{{Cite SSRN}}	SSRN papers
{{Cite tech report}}	technical reports
{{Cite thesis}}	theses
{{Cite web}}	web sources not covered by the above
See also	Specific-source templates Citation Style 1 wrapper templates

A template for citing tweets posted on Twitter.

Usage

Copy a blank version to use. Almost all parameter names are supported only in lower case (some initialisms, such as |isbn= have upper-case aliases like |ISBN=, which are acceptable for use). Use the "|" (pipe) character between each parameter. Unused parameters may be deleted to avoid clutter in the edit window. Some samples on this documentation page may include the current date. If the date is not current, then the page.

Required parameters only, in horizontal format

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" copy="1"> (Tweet) https://x.com/ – via Twitter. {{cite web}}: Missing or empty |title= (help); {{Cite tweet}}: Missing or empty |user=; Missing or empty |number= (help)</syntaxhighlight>

Full parameter set in horizontal format

<syntaxhighlight lang="wikitext" copy="1"> (Tweet) https://x.com/ – via Twitter. {{cite web}}: |first1= has numeric name (help); |first1= missing |last1= (help); Missing or empty |title= (help); {{Cite tweet}}: Missing or empty |user=; Missing or empty |number= (help)</syntaxhighlight>

 Note: When known, the author's real name should be specified in the |author= parameter (or |last= and |first=). If their real name is not known, then the tweet is probably not an acceptable usage of a self-published source.

Using {{sfn}} and {{harvid}}

To use this template with shortened footnotes (e.g. the {{sfn}} template), add |ref= with {{harvid}} in the parameter value, like this:

{{Cite tweet |ref={{harvid|Porck|2017}} |last=Porck |first=Thijs |user=thijsporck |number=889205416596471811 |date=23 July 2017 |title=Spotted in Marvel's Doctor Strange: Sutton Hoo Helmet replica! |access-date=5 December 2017}}

This reference would be cited as {{sfn|Porck|2017}}.

Optional |date= parameter

Unlike most citation templates, the |date= parameter is optional. This is because the date can be calculated directly from the Tweet's ID using Module:TwitterSnowflake (wrapped with Template:TwitterSnowflake).

If the |date= parameter is off by more than one day from what the calculated date is, the template will output an error. This can be fixed by removing or correcting the date parameter.

If the Tweet was posted before November 4, 2010, the date cannot be calculated from the ID — the template will output an error if no date is provided. The template will also provide incorrect dates for tweets posted before November 4, 2010.

Examples

{{Cite tweet |user=Pigsonthewing |number=564068436633214977 |title=This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians!}}

@Pigsonthewing (February 7, 2015). "This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

{{Cite tweet |author=Andy Mabbett |user=Pigsonthewing |number=564068436633214977 |title=This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians!}}

Andy Mabbett [@Pigsonthewing] (February 7, 2015). "This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

{{Cite tweet |author=Andy Mabbett |user=Pigsonthewing |number=564068436633214977 |title=This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians! |retweet=Wikimedia Foundation [Wikimedia]}}

Andy Mabbett [@Pigsonthewing] (February 7, 2015). "This is an example tweet. Hello, Wikipedians!" (Tweet). Retweeted by Wikimedia Foundation [Wikimedia] – via Twitter.

If the author has a Wikipedia article, use of |author-link= is recommended:
{{Cite tweet |author=Elon Musk |author-link=Elon Musk |user=elonmusk |number=743097337782763521 |title=Looks like thrust was low on 1 of 3 landing engines. High g landings v sensitive to all engines operating at max.}}

Elon Musk [@elonmusk] (June 15, 2016). "Looks like thrust was low on 1 of 3 landing engines. High g landings v sensitive to all engines operating at max" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

This tweet was posted before November 4, 2010, so |date= is necessary:
{{Cite tweet |user=jack |number=20 |title=just setting up my twttr |date=March 21, 2006 }}

@jack (March 21, 2006). "just setting up my twttr" (Tweet) – via Twitter.

Error detection

• The parameters |user=, |number=, and |title= are required. If omitted or left blank, errors will be reported. For example:

  {{Cite tweet |title=I'm an incomplete citation!}}

  "I'm an incomplete citation!" (Tweet) – via Twitter. {{Cite tweet}}: Missing or empty |user=; Missing or empty |number= (help)

Missing or empty |user=

The |user= parameter is required. The tweet URL is derived from the |user= and |number= parameters. If |user= or |number= are missing, the URL defaults to https://twitter.com/ Copy the twitter handle (minus the "@" symbol) into this parameter.

Missing or empty |number=

The |number= parameter is required. The tweet URL and date are derived from |number=. If |user= or |number= are missing, the URL defaults to https://twitter.com/ Copy the long number behind the final / of the tweet's URL into this parameter. For example, if the Tweet URL is https://twitter.com/pigsonthewing/status/564068436633214977, the template requires |number=564068436633214977

Invalid |number=

This error indicates that the required |number= parameter does not match a tweet's URL. Copy the long number behind the final \ of the tweet's URL into this parameter. For example, if the Tweet URL is https://twitter.com/pigsonthewing/status/564068436633214977, the template requires |number=564068436633214977

|date= required

The |date= parameter is required for tweets posted before November 4, 2010. The |date= parameter is optional for tweets posted after November 4, 2010, as the date is determined from the |number= parameter. For earlier tweets, manually type the date into |date=.

|date= / |number= mismatch

The tweet date is derived from the |number= parameter for tweets posted after November 4, 2010. If the optional |date= parameter is used and off by more than a day from the calculated date, an error is displayed. If the |number= is correct, remove or correct the |date=.

TemplateData

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

TemplateData for Cite tweet

A template for citing tweets posted on Twitter.

Template parameters[Edit template data]

This template has custom formatting.

Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Tweet number	number	Numerical ID of the tweet	Number	required
User handle	user	Twitter account name, without the @	String	required
Tweet contents	title	Partial or entire content of the tweet, optionally including hashtags (#), at signs (@), and links. Note: double quote marks (") should be replaced with single quote marks (') because the entire title will display surrounded by double quotes.	String	required
First name	first first1	The first name of the author, if known. If not known, then the tweet is probably not an acceptable usage of a self-published source (see WP:SPS).	String	suggested
Last name	last	The last name of the author.	String	suggested
Tweet author	author	Author's real name, if known. Will not change to the last name, first name format.	String	optional
Author's article	author-link authorlink	Title of existing Wikipedia article about the author	Page name	optional
Retweeted by	retweet	The reliable source who retweeted the tweet, if the original tweeter is not anyone particularly notable. May be wikilinked.	String	optional
Date	date	Date of the tweet; do not wikilink; do not include time.	Date	suggested
Access date	access-date accessdate	The full date when the tweet was accessed; do not wikilink	Date	suggested
Language	language	The language in which the tweet is written, if not in English. Example fr	String	optional
Tweet location	location	The location from which a tweet was sent. Example London	String	optional
Archive URL	archive-url archiveurl	The URL of an archived copy of a web page, if or in case the URL becomes unavailable; requires 'archive-date'	URL	optional
Archive date	archive-date archivedate	Date when the original URL was archived; do not wikilink	Date	optional
URL status	url-status	If set to 'live', the title displays as the live link; if set to dead, the title displays as the archive link	String	optional
Tweet script	script-title	For tweets in languages that do not use a Latin-based alphabet (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, etc). Prefix with two-character ISO639-1 language code followed by a colon, e.g. for Japanese use: ja:... Example ja:東京タワー	String	optional
Translated tweet	trans-title	An English language translation, if the tweet cited is in a foreign language; use of 'language' parameter is recommended	String	optional
Link to Twitter article?	link	Set to "no" to not link to the Wikipedia article for Twitter. Useful for preventing overlinking when more than one tweet is cited.	Boolean	optional
Date format	df	Valid values: dmy, dmy-all, mdy, mdy-all, ymd, ymd-all	String	optional
Quote	quote	Relevant text quoted from the source; displays last, enclosed in quotes; must include terminating punctuation	String	optional
Ref anchor	ref	An anchor identifier; can be made the target of wikilinks to full references	String	optional

See also

• {{Tweet}}
• {{Cite Twitter profile}}
• WP:TWITTER

Tracking category

• Category:Cite tweet templates with errors (0)

The above documentation is transcluded from Template:Cite tweet/doc. (edit | history)
Editors can experiment in this template's sandbox (create | mirror) and testcases (create) pages.
Add categories to the /doc subpage. Subpages of this template.