Template:Main

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This template is used on approximately 362,000 pages, or roughly 1% of all pages.
To avoid major disruption and server load, any changes should be tested in the template's /sandbox or /testcases subpages, or in your own user subpage. The tested changes can be added to this page in a single edit. Consider discussing changes on the talk page before implementing them.

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This template uses Lua:

Module:Labelled list hatnote (sandbox)

When a Wikipedia article is large, it is often written in summary style. This template is used after the heading of the summary, to link to the subtopic article that has been summarized. For Category namespace, please use {{Cat main}} instead.

Use of this template should be restricted to the purposes described above. It is not to be used as a substitute for inline links or {{Further}} template. The latter is used when the section expounds a specific aspect of the topic instead of summarizing its article. For example, in phthalate, the template under the "Endocrine disruptor" section should not be {{Main|Endocrine disruptor}}, because the section specifically deals with phthalate as an endocrine disruptor and not endocrine disruptors in general.

This template should also not be used in lead sections. A lead section is always a summary of its own article, not any other; as such, the only appropriate target for a {{Main}} link in the lead section would be the article itself, which is not useful.

Usage

Basic usage: {{Main|page}}
All parameters: {{Main|page1|page2|page3| ... |l1 = label1|l2 = label2|l3 = label3| ... |selfref = yes}}

Parameters

1, 2, 3, ... – the pages to link to. If no page names are specified, the current page name is used instead (without the namespace prefix). Categories and files are automatically escaped with the colon trick, and links to sections are automatically formatted as page § section, rather than the MediaWiki default of page#section.
l1, l2, l3, ... orlabel 1, label 2, label 3, ... – optional labels for each of the pages to link to (this is for articles where a piped link would be used). Note that the extra parameters use a lower case 'L', for example, l1, not L1.
selfref – if set to "yes", "y", "true" or "1", adds the CSS class "selfref". This is used to denote self-references to Wikipedia. See Template:Selfref for more information. This is only necessary in articles and other content (e.g. templates) that will appear in articles, and need not be added for uses of this template on Wikipedia: namespace pages.

Template data

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

TemplateData for Main

This template is used after the heading of a section, to link to a sub-article (or sub-articles) that is entirely about the topic of the section. The template will display, in italics, "Main article: Article 1, Article 2 and Article 3"

Template parameters[Edit template data]
This template has custom formatting.
Parameter		Description	Type	Status
Page 1	`1`	The name of the first page that you want to link to. If this is not specified, the current page name (with no namespace prefix) is used instead.	Page name	required
Page 2	`2`	The name of the second page that you want to link to.	Page name	optional
Page 3	`3`	The name of the third page that you want to link to. More pages can be added using the parameters "4", "5", etc.	Page name	optional
Page 4	`4`	The name of the fourth page that you want to link to.	Page name	optional
Page 5	`5`	The name of the fifth page that you want to link to.	Page name	optional
Label 1	`l1` `label 1`	What the first linked page is to be displayed as.	String	optional
Label 2	`l2` `label 2`	What the second linked page is to be displayed as.	String	optional
Label 3	`l3` `label 3`	What the third linked page is to be displayed as. Other labels can be added by using increasing numbers (starting with "l4" for page 4) as parameter names.	String	optional
Label 4	`l4` `label 4`	What the fourth linked page is to be displayed as.	String	optional
Label 5	`l5` `label 5`	What the fifth linked page is to be displayed as.	String	optional
Self reference	`selfref`	Set to "yes" if the template is a self-reference to Wikipedia that would not make sense on mirrors or forks of the Wikipedia site.	Boolean	optional

Examples

{{Main}} → Error: no page names specified (help).
{{Main|Article}} →
{{Main|Article#Section title}} →
{{Main|Article#Section|l1=Custom section label}} →
{{Main|Article1|Article2|Article3}} →
{{Main|Article1|l1=Custom label 1|Article2|l2=Custom label 2}} →
{{Main|(15760) 1992 QB1|l1={{mp|(15760) 1992 QB|1}}}} →

Errors

If the name of the first page that you want to link to is not specified, the current page name (with no namespace prefix) is used instead:

Error: no page names specified (help).

No errors can be displayed due to the illegal usage of parameters or other usages (i.e. the first parameter can be omitted, other parameters can be used even if the first one is empty (and automatically filled with the current page name (with no namespace prefix)), equals sign can be used as one of the parameters, and template can be used by direct call to the module (using "#invoke")). This is not the case for {{see also}}, for example.