This is the {{Expand section}} message box.

It can be placed at the top of article sections that need expansion, below the section title. It can also be used on other pages such as in "Wikipedia:" space. (This template currently only uses the "article message box" style, but that is a bug we are going to fix.)

This template can be used without any parameters, like this:

{{Expand section}}

It can also take the current month and year as a parameter, which is used in categorising the page into a corresponding category. (See more on that below.) Like this:

{{Expand section|date=December 2024}}

or

{{Expand section|{{subst:DATE}}}}

There are bots that edit the pages and add the date parameter if you forget to do it. The date parameter causes no visible change in the message box itself, it only makes the page categorise properly.

This template can also take a |1= parameter with an explanation of what expansion the section needs. And you can of course feed the date parameter at the same time. Like this:

{{examples and additional citations|date=December 2024}}

When multiple expansion issues need to be raised, a bullet list can be made:

{{Expand section|1=<nowiki />
* Career from 1952 to 1960
* Final days after 1972 retirement
|{{subst:DATE}}}}

(The <nowiki /> is required or the first item will not display correctly.) If this list would be longer than three items, it is probably best just raise the issues on the talk page.

When this template is used in main (article) space it places the article in Category:Articles to be expanded or in a dated category like Category:Articles to be expanded from December 2024 if the date parameter "date=December 2024" is specified. It also places the article in Category:All articles to be expanded.