There is a standard and consistent design for article message boxes — templates which are inserted into articles/sections, and identify problems or issues with the article. The design was standardized and implemented in September 2007.

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This page in a nutshell: Article message boxes have a standard design and colours. They use CSS and a meta template to achieve this.

The scope of this effort is the design of article message boxes ("amboxes"). Article message boxes are template messages, in a rectangular frame (box), which are placed in articles, and are also about articles. They identify issues or important information about the article, but are not part of the article content itself.

The following are presently outside the scope of this effort:

• The wording (text) inside article message boxes (present focus is on appearance/formatting)
• Other kinds of article templates, such as navigation boxes and infoboxes
• Talk page templates, which were standardised in 2005 by Wikipedia:Talk page templates
• Project namespace templates, used in the Wikipedia: namespace

The ambox tags that we use to notify people of problems within an article are on thousands of our pages. Our readers see them and judgements are made not only about the article at hand, but about the project itself. In the past, we had a myriad of templates that often shared some level of consistency, but still looked very mismatched.

This effort aims to address these issues. Design principles include:

• Colour-coding is good, but avoid excess
  • Coloured/shaded backgrounds can make text hard to read for some people, especially those with color-vision deficiencies
• Consistent widths make multiple adjacent amboxes easier to read
• This is a deliberate design effort, while the old templates evolved organically over time
• Easily implemented
• The use of CSS allows appearance customization/override on a per-user or per-skin basis

Most article message boxes use this design.

The design of these article message boxes is controlled by the Ambox classes, which are styled by MediaWiki:Common.css.

The meta template {{ambox}} makes it easy to create article message boxes in the new design. It has usage documentation and examples. Note that {{ambox}} is just a thin wrapper for the classes.

The classes can also be used directly within a wikitable or HTML table, especially when special functionality is needed. Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes describes how.

Please note:

• The wording (text) of these message boxes is outside the scope of this effort. The wording in the examples below is for illustration purposes only.
• The following box has a white background to mimic article pages.

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Stacking demo

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• Wikipedia:Template messages – For a complete list of amboxes
• Wikipedia talk:Article message boxes – For discussion about these matters.
• Template:Ambox – The meta template that makes it easy to create article message box templates in this new style. It has usage documentation and examples.
• Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes – Describes how to use the ambox classes directly in wikitables and HTML tables.
• Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes/Skins – Several article message box skins for your Wikipedia account.
• Wikipedia:Talk page templates – For ClockworkSoul's Coffee Roll standard used in talk page templates.
• Wikipedia:Template standardisation – For standardisation efforts across the template namespace.
• Wikipedia:Ambox CSS classes/Admins – For CSS to be placed in MediaWiki:Monobook.css or MediaWiki:Monaco.css on a Wikia site.
• Wikipedia:Huge message boxes