Template:Find a Grave/doc

Template for reference to a memorial on the Find a Grave website.

Usage guidance
Care should be taken when deciding to make a link to the Find a Grave website. While photographs of gravestones provide useful information, the biographical and other additional details may not be reliable. If there are fully reliable sources which may be used, then the Find a Grave link should not be used, or should be removed in place of the more reliable source.

To comply with WP:ELNO, only place in External links section if the website contains unique information not already mentioned and cited in the body of the article and is not a WP:COPYLINK violation. Remove from External links if Find a Grave is already cited in main body, if burial information is provided in main body by a more reliable source, or if the page contains any unlicensed copyrighted information (e.g., professional portrait photography or copies of obituaries from a newspaper).
 * As an WP:External link

Find a Grave is not considered to qualify as a reliable source. Whenever appropriate reliable sources discuss the same material, editors are encouraged to prefer those to a Find a Grave link.
 * As a reference for article content

When using Find a Grave as a citation to support article content, either use the optional parameters listed below, or consider using cite web to provide the information necessary for a complete citation. If the link is provided as a reference, please do not duplicate it in the external links section.

How to use
Paste into the article, changing "1234" to Find a Grave's grid number, and "John Doe" to the person's name.

Parameters

 * (built into the template) – The first portion of the Find a Grave website url is built into the template. The url begins as: “http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=”. This field cannot be changed.
 * (required) - The second portion of the URL, the grid #, is an unnamed paramater and is a required field. The "GRid" number in the URL, i.e. 1234 for "http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1234". It is also displayed directly on the Find a Grave page as the "Find a Grave Memorial#".
 * (built into the template) – The title field is built into the template and will take the page name by default unless the article author defines something else. For example if the article title is John Smith (Medal of Honor) the article editor can change this to display as John Smith. This field cannot be changed.
 * (built into the template) – The publisher field will default as Find a Grave. This field cannot be changed.
 * (optional) – This field allows the user to input the work that the link falls under in the Find a Grave website such as the category the link falls under in the Claim to fame section.
 * (optional) – the creator of the Find a Grave link
 * (optional) – the date the entry was created on the Find a Grave website
 * (optional) - date page last checked

Example
The following is a basic example for http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1234
 * usage:
 * output:

The below table describes each parameter and its usage.