Find subst count and examples of this template on User talk pages using this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024] (Patience; this may take a while.)
 | This template should not be substituted. |
 | This template is rated as beta. It is considered ready for widespread use, but as it is still relatively new, it should be applied with some caution to ensure results are as expected. |
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Emits a notice intended for Template doc pages with an embedded Cirrus link to help prospective template users search for substed examples of the template. Text emitted is configurable.
Usage
{{find substed templates notice}}
{{fstn|Template name|sns=search namespace|msg=Message|lt=anchor|after=more text|noyears=yes}}
Parameters
This template has one positional parameter and six named parameters, all optional:
|1=– name of the template, excluding namespace (default: name of the current page; uses basepagename on /doc pages)|sns=– search namespace: what namespace to search for the template (default =User talk; see list)- the special value
all(i.e.,|sns=all) may be used to search all namespaces simultaneously
- the special value
|ns=– namespace of the template being searched for; e.g., use|ns=Userfor a userspace template; (default:Template)|msg=– message to display before the Cirrus link (default = 'Find subst count and examples of this template on User talk pages using')|lt=– link text to display; (default: 'this advanced search link')|after=– text to append after the Cirrus link (default = '(Patience; this may take a while.)')- the special value
no(i.e.,|after=no) may be used to suppress the text after the link.)
- the special value
|noyears=– set toyesto disable search-by-year links. See § Search by year issues.
Examples
{{find substed templates notice}}→ Find subst count and examples of this template on User talk pages using this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024] (Patience; this may take a while.){{Find substed templates notice|uw-vandalism4}}→ Find subst count and examples of this template on User talk pages using this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024] (Patience; this may take a while.){{Find substed templates notice|Notified|sns=Talk}}→ Find subst count and examples of this template on Talk pages using this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024] (Patience; this may take a while.){{Find substed templates notice|Notified|sns=Wikipedia|noyears=yes}}→ Find subst count and examples of this template on Wikipedia pages using this advanced search. (Patience; this may take a while.){{find substed templates notice|uw-spam4im|msg=Find examples at}}→ Find examples at this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024] (Patience; this may take a while.){{fstn|polltop|msg=Find examples at|after=no}}→ Find examples at this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024]{{fstn|RFDNote|msg=See examples|lt=here|after=no|sns=Help talk|noyears=y}}→ See examples here.{{fstn|welcome-retro}}→ Find subst count and examples of this template on User talk pages using this advanced search.[2026; 2025; 2024] (Patience; this may take a while.)
Notes
In most cases, this template should be used with no parameters, unless you are altering the message or link text. The § Examples above use parameter 1 so they can run on this doc page, but normally you would not need it. Param 1, explained § above as the "name of the template", is in reality the value of the hidden tag at the end of the template. Since the two are invariably the same, you don't need to include it, except in very rare cases; see § False positives and negatives.
Method
This template cannot find all substed templates. It depends upon a convention used in some templates of having the template name substed onto the page embedded in an HTML comment. The last example above, for example, depends upon finding the string <!-- Template:Welcome-retro --> substed onto the page. There can be any number of blanks–including none–between the template name and the HTML comment delimiters at each end, and there can be two, or three hyphens in each delimiter. Templates which are substed but which do not follow this convention cannot be found by this template.
Performance and timeout
The search link in this template uses Cirrus regular expression search, which can be slow for queries that return a great many results, and may time out after 20 seconds, usually with a partial result set returned. If the query times out or doesn't produce as many results as you believe it should, you may be able to produce more results by trying again at a time when the server is under less load. Another way to avoid a timeout in some cases, is by using the by-year search links, which will reduce the number of results. Some sample timings: {{uw-v4}}: 238,144 results in approx. 5 seconds; {{uw-v3}}: 425,295 = ~7"; {{uw-v2}}: 808,617 = ~10"; {{uw-v1}}: 2,490,016 = ~17" (timed out; results incomplete).
False positives and negatives
Sometimes, the hidden tag does not match the template name. (This sometimes occurs after page moves, or copy/pasting when creating a new template.) You may be able to remedy this by using positional param 1 to specify the hidden tag. If the page was moved at some point and the tag was changed, you may end up with some substed pages with one tag, some with another; a workaround in this case is to use the template twice: one of them will need to use param 1.
A more complex case occurs when someone uses the Cirrus link to search for substitutions of a template copied from another without a tag change; this will turn up instances of the copied template as a false positive, skewing the count of actual substitutions of the older one.[a] The flip side of that is underreporting of substed templates who have or used to have the wrong tag. This includes misspellings, such as "Teahouse_AfC_invitaiton" [sic] which can be found by using param 1 set to the misspelled token: {{fsubst|Teahouse_AfC_invitaiton}}, which gives 38,000 results for decade-old substitutions, until the spelling of the tag was corrected at some point. (But those 38,000 misspelled results were substed, so they are never going away.)
Search by year issues
Successful display of accurate results using the search-by-year links depends on the appearance of the year as part of the date timestamp included in a signature which appears after the hidden template id. This template cannot find substed templates in a given year that contain no signature, or which contain a signature without a timestamp, or which contain extraneous information between the hidden template id and the dated signature. Because pages in subject namespaces generally contain no signature, it usually does not make sense to display the by-year links when parameter |sns= is present and specifies any subject namespace, with the exception of noticeboards and other boards like WP:Xfd in project space which typically do contain dated signatures. The search-by-year links are on by default, but may be disabled using |noyears=yes.
The search string used to find templates substed in a given year depends on the hidden template name string at the end of the template, and on a signature containing the date following it, in that order, with no intervening newline. A very few templates include both elements but in the reverse order, with the timestamped signature first and the hidden template id afterward. Such templates, such as WP:Teahouse/Invitation2, {{Notified}}, and some auto-sig templates cannot be found for a given year by this template, but they are few. They can still be searched without a year specified, so using |noyears=yes is best in these cases.
- ↑ This is the case for example with templates {{Welcome graphical}} and {{WelcomeIPh}}, both of which had the token copied from {{Welcomeg}} until 7 Sept 2025, when they were fixed. Substitutions previous to that date will show up (forever) in the search results linked from the doc page of Template:Welcomeg. Any results shown for those two will only reflect substitutions after that date.
TemplateData
TemplateData for Find substed templates notice
Emits a notice with an embedded Cirrus link to help find substed templates; intended for Template doc pages.
| Parameter | Description | Type | Status | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Template | 1 | Name of the template to search for (without the namespace)
| Page name | optional |
| Search namespace | sns | what namespace to search for the template in ('all' searches all namespaces)
| String | optional |
| Message | msg | Message to display before the Cirrus link
| String | optional |
| Link text | lt | Link text to display underlying the Cirrus link
| String | optional |
| After | after | text to append after the Cirrus link ('no' suppresses the text)
| String | optional |
| No years | noyears | suppress display of by-year search links
| Boolean | optional |