As ofJune 10, 2016, a rule has been added to MediaWiki:Common.css, so now<small> consistently renders at size that is 85% of the surrounding text. This template remains as a convenience wrapper.
Remember "Avoid using smaller font sizes in elements that already use a smaller font size, such as infoboxes, navboxes and references sections", perMOS:ACCESS#Font size andMOS:SMALLFONT. Using this template within an infobox would produce a font size 75% of the page default, well below the 85% minimum specified in the linked guidelines.
The only parameter is the content and may contain templates, images, etc. if a block needs to be wrapped in this template and contains such elements. Note that if the= character appears in the content, the parameter must be explicitly specified as|1=.
Usage with multiple lines
Do not use this template to wrap multiple lines; doing so will causeLinter errors. If you need to wrap multiple list items or multiple paragraphs, use{{smalldiv}} around the entire block, or wrap each list item or paragraph separately.
