Wikipedia:As of

[[:|WP:AO]]

The "as of" technique is an old method to deal with statements that date quickly. Some articles have information that is valid only at a specific moment in history, such as population statistics and the like. If you suspect that a fact in an article will become significantly out of date in years to come and want to ensure that people will update it, include a link of the form

[[As of yyyy]] or [[As of Mmmmm yyyy]]

with the year of validity in place of yyyy and the month (first letter capitalized) in place of Mmmmm.

Every individual, 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 they need to be checked also.

Alternatives

"As of" links make it easy to find such articles in the future by using the "what links here" feature. 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 further discussion, please visit Wikipedia talk:As of.) Note that this technique has a number of significant flaws.

A separate list of outdated articles, based on an entirely different "tagging" mechanism, is at Category:Wikipedia articles in need of updating.

An alternative mechanism was being developed at Wikipedia:Updating information, but that discussion is not currently active.

Usage guidelines

Usually as of is used only in cases where an article is intended to provide the most current information available. It should not be used for historical information that is not intended to be updated. For example, an article that mentions population changes in Toledo, Ohio should not link to as of for official U.S. census figures for each decade. However, the latest available population figure stated in the opening paragraphs of the Toledo, Ohio article itself should be so linked.

As of can be used with future dates when events are anticipated but not definite, when the tense of the reference will need to be changed, or for recurring events. 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:

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

Construction is to finish in [[As of 2008|2008]] and will cost 28 billion USD.

The first case above can be used if there is an expectation that the estimated completion date will have changed by 2007. Otherwise the second form, with a "piped" link, provides a less clumsy wording.

For a recurring event:

The next U.S. Presidential election will be [[as of 2008|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 [[as of 2008|in]] [[2008]].

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

For future dates, it might be important to check the article before the actual year being referred to. For example, if the current year is 2006, the first example above might be better done as:

Construction is to finish in [[As of 2007|2008]] and will cost 28 billion USD.

However, note that readers following the link may be a bit confused when they are redirected to the 2007 article when the link appeared to be to 2008.

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

Keeping the lists below current: the "as of" page format

Each as of page redirects to the article for the year in question and includes the message {{R for as of}} to describe its purpose. Thus, a complete "As of" page would look like this:

#REDIRECT [[yyyy]] {{R for as of}}

Please add new as of pages to the list below. An efficient way to find newly created "as of" pages is to use Special:Allpages/As of (or Special:Prefixindex/As of).

List of "As of" pages that have year only

Entries marked "(empty)" were only linked to from this page, as of 22:42, 28 September 2006 (UTC).

As of 1900 - Links
As of 1911 - Links (data from 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica)
As of 1935 - Links (includes data from 1935 Modern World Encyclopedia)
As of 1978 - Links (empty)
As of 1979 - Links (empty)
As of 1980 - Links (empty)
As of 1981 - Links
As of 1983 - Links (includes data from 1983 Doornbos and Bender via Ethnologue)
As of 1985 - Links
As of 1986 - Links
As of 1987 - Links
As of 1989 - Links
As of 1990 - Links
As of 1991 - Links
As of 1992 - Links
As of 1993 - Links
As of 1994 - Links
As of 1995 - Links
As of 1996 - Links
As of 1997 - Links
As of 1998 - Links
As of 1999 - Links
As of 2000 - Links (includes data from U.S. April 1 2000 Census)
As of 2001 - Links (includes data from the Australian 2001 Census, Canadian 2001 Census and Indian 2001 Census)
As of 2002 - Links
As of 2003 - Links
As of 2004 - Links
As of 2005 - Links
As of 2006 - Links
As of 2007 - Links
As of 2008 - Links
As of 2009 - Links

List of "As of" pages that have both month and year

As series of links have the forms [[As of (month) (year)]]. Currently these are available from the year 2000 onwards only. Please avoid creating links for earlier months/years.

Alternatives

Usage guidelines

Keeping the lists below current: the "as of" page format

List of "As of" pages that have year only

List of "As of" pages that have both month and year

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

See also