Wikitemplates

This is a proposal for a new Wikimedia sister project.

Wikitemplates
Status of the proposal
Status	stalled
Details of the proposal
Project description	It will be a repository for templates which will be used on other Wikimedia/MediaWiki wikis.
Is it a multilingual wiki?	As it is a template repository, it will be multilingual
Potential number of languages	Many languages
Proposed tagline	The template repository
Proposed URL	https://wikitemplates.org
Technical requirements
New features to require	See phab:T66475 about implementation
Development wiki	https://wikitemplates.org
Additional project settings	Allowing uploads would be redundant as the project will not have any local files.

Wikitemplates is a wiki that is basically a repository for templates, which will be used as a replacement for local templates which occur in most wikis.

Proposed by

• Zaenon

Alternative names

• TemplateWiki

Related projects/proposals

• Previous discussion of global templates: Global-Wiki
• Alternative approach for the time being at mw:Multilingual Templates and Modules

Domain names

• https://wikitemplates.org - Registered by User:Sophivorus
• https://templatewiki.org
• https://templates.wikimedia.org

Mailing list links

As of now there is no mentioning of this project

Demo

https://www.wikitemplates.org

Hi all! I just registered wikitemplates.org and set up a wiki for it. To get started with development, we can use the scary transcluding feature. The reason for its name is that it's "somewhat inefficient", but you know what's really inefficient? Having scarce volunteers repeat work over and over hundreds if not thousands of times only to save computers some work! I have enabled scary transcluding in https://wikivideos.org (a wiki I made for the Wikivideos project proposal). You can register there and experiment! I also developed a first, relatively simple "wikitemplate" (see Template:Edit and the Wikivideos version) and I'm working on a more complicated case (Template:Documentation). Out of this experience I started drafting some best practices. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 14:55, 17 August 2022 (UTC)

Ping to supporters: @Zaenon @1234qwer1234qwer4 @Thibdx @Фред-Продавец звёзд @Arepticous @Yurik @Capankajsmilyo @MJL @Rubbish computer @Moonythedwarf @沈澄心 @BoldLuis @Kostas20142 @NGC 54 @Kitabc12345 @Atmark-chan @Random Wikimedian @Matttest @YavBav09 @Netgo123 @Shizhao @Liuxinyu970226 @TylerMagee Sophivorus (talk) 13:08, 18 August 2022 (UTC)

I'm a bit surprised that after more than two months of putting up the demo wiki, no one commented, no one contributed, no one even registered. Is it such an unsatisfactory demo? Is there any real interest in this project? Sophivorus (talk) 13:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

Well, it's been one year since I registered wikitemplates.org and put up a demo wiki, and no one has really comment or participated. Thus I just let the domain expire (I won't spend a single dollar or minute more in this). I think this proposal is supported in theory but is stalled in practice. Thus I'm marking it as stalled. Bye! Sophivorus (talk) 13:16, 16 August 2023 (UTC)

People interested

• This is a good idea, mainly because I would LOVE to restore the old SharedIP templates (the ones with the blue box and the big "Attention:") to English Wikipedia. Putting "Welcome to Wikipedia! Create an account!" into an anti-vandal template is just dumb. Lojbanist (talk) 08:46, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

  This is not in the scope of the proposed project. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 14:05, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

• Good idea. This will make it simpler to contribute to multiple wikis. New wikis will also start faster. We will all gain time. -- Thibdx (talk) 03:48, 14 August 2018 (UTC)
•  Strong support. Very good idea to globalize some hundred-thousand of templates! Infoboxes, cite-webs, external link templates etc. Фред-Продавец звёзд (talk) 16:38, 3 May 2019 (UTC)
•  Strong support Changing my earlier perspective, this is actually brilliant idea, much easier than transferring templates from another project. Would help in many ways to projects that lacks templates. maybe we should make his a part of commons. Arep Ticous 17:22, 9 September 2019 (UTC)
•  Support Already working on such a project on mediawiki with Yurik Capankajsmilyo (talk) 09:31, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
•  Strong support Having recently become an admin on a smaller wiki, yeah.. this is badly needed. –MJL ‐Talk‐^☖ 00:26, 11 September 2019 (UTC)
•  Support Rubbish computer (Talk: Contribs) 13:12, 21 October 2019 (UTC)
•  Strong support Would allow usage of templates like, say, the {{strong support}} template on any site with ease, and allow sharing module code between wikis in an accessible manner.--Moonythedwarf (talk) 21:17, 21 November 2019 (UTC)
•  Support --沈澄心✉ 09:53, 2 January 2020 (UTC)
•  Strong support. Nowadays there is a interwiki template hell. Global templates can help. It would be interesting also help in designing templates for Wikimedia Projects' users. It must include template levels: a user perhaps want use a simple and easy template (i.e. level 1). BoldLuis (talk) 23:38, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
•  Support, would be very useful. --Kostas20142 (talk) 22:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)
•  Strong support. This project will be helpful for smaller wikis. --NGC 54 (talk | contribs) 08:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

But Wikimedia Templates (wikimedia.templates.orgtemplates.wikimedia.org) if Wikimedia Commons will remain "Wikimedia Commons"; if Wikimedia Commons will become "Wikicommons", then "Wikitemplates". --NGC 54 (talk | contribs) 15:53, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

@NGC 54: Do you mean "templates.wikimedia.org"? 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 14:02, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

@1234qwer1234qwer4: Yes. It is a typo. --NGC 54 (talk / contribs) 14:05, 1 March 2021 (UTC)

•  Support helpful for smaller wikis.--Kitabc12345 (talk) 05:44, 2 May 2020 (UTC)
•  Strong support It is like the template version of Commons, right? I believe it'll be very useful especially for small wikis. I'm active in Japanese Wikivoyage; actually, when that wiki was beginning, making templates took time and effort. --Atmark-chan <^T/_C> 15:56, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
•  Support This would be useful. Random Wikimedian (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:47, 25 February 2021.
•  Support Cross-wiki templates will be very convenient. 𝟙𝟤𝟯𝟺𝐪𝑤𝒆𝓇𝟷𝟮𝟥𝟜𝓺𝔴𝕖𝖗𝟰 (𝗍𝗮𝘭𝙠) 14:03, 1 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Strong support Will be useful for small wikis-Matttest (talk) 03:33, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
•  Strong support Way better alternative to crosswiki templates. Will be really useful for many wikis (including non-Wikimedia ones). --YavBav09 (talk) 17:45, 17 July 2021 (UTC)
•  Strong support Netgo123 (talk) 05:26, 20 October 2021 (UTC)
•  Support--Shizhao (talk) 03:10, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
•  Strong support Redoing the same tedious and often difficult technical work hundreds of times is madness. Many wikis don't have enough technical contributors and their users (both editors and readers) suffer due to bad templates. An example: until I fixed them a couple years ago, the Spanish Wikipedia had completely unresponsive and unfriendly notices that for many years looked plain broken on mobile devices for millions of users. Sophivorus (talk) 20:02, 29 June 2022 (UTC)
•  The world's most strongly support, do we need to write any wikis without any templates? --Liuxinyu970226 (talk) 03:45, 29 July 2022 (UTC)
•  Support - I think it's a good idea, especially with the new wiki. By centralizing templates, even on wikis where no one is familiar with templates, user can just translate the templates and use them. this is a very good idea.--Syunsyunminmin 🗨️talk 16:04, 23 September 2022 (UTC)
•  Strong support Very good idea to centralise templates! Matr1x-101 (talk) 18:03, 31 October 2022 (UTC)
•  Support and recommend that requests for new projects be looked at *someone* this year. We haven't had a new project created in 10 years, and that's concerning. EpicPupper (talk) 18:33, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
•  Strong support Wow! That would be very good a separate wiki for templates, Let's see. YIEWI talk 20:18, 20 December 2022 (UTC)
•  Strong support I LOVE This idea! Smug uwu (talk) 03:21, 18 March 2023 (UTC)
•  Strong support I think it will be useful project like Commons and Wikidata --Butko (talk) 13:53, 9 June 2023 (UTC)
•  Support conditionally: I think that this is a good idea, as long as all of our wikis support Lua, and that the templates can be easily translated into other languages.

I think that this wiki would also benefit from more extensive template documentation --QuickQuokka ^{[⁠talk • contribs]} 19:48, 12 June 2023 (UTC)

•  Support --V0lkanic (talk) 22:45, 11 August 2023 (UTC)

People opposed

1.  Oppose for the reasons I explained at mw:Global templates/Discuss/oppose; I fundamentally believe that the templates each wiki uses should be customized for that wiki, not bloated with inapplicable code. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 23:04, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

   I agree this is true for some templates, but I think other templates would be useful if they could be accessed globally. ~~~~
   User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 23:11, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

   And I fear that the result of this proposal, in the unlikely event it gets adopted (since Proposals for new projects seems to be entirely non-operational right now) is that templates that should be customized for each wiki will not be. I've already seen this happen many times via manual cut-and-paste, and doing it by default only makes things worse. * Pppery * _{it has begun} 23:19, 13 May 2021 (UTC)

   "doing it by default" will prevent cut-and-pastes, which will make it easier to see what templates still need to be customised. ~~~~
   User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 08:13, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

2.  Oppose for the same reasons. For example, most templates from Wikipedia don't work on Wikiversity because Wikiversity did not install Lua yet. --Hérisson grognon (talk) 13:51, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

   really? * Pppery * _{it has begun} 17:34, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

People other

• Conditional support Only if we can still use local templates. I think this should only be used for simple shared templates and not more specific (or local) ones (e.g. Uw-vandalism1 or Delete). I generally agree with Pppery, but I think very simple templates such as {{green}} or {{Tl}} should be global, while still having local options (of course). If my conditions are not met, then Strong Oppose. – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 20:45, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Ilovemydoodle Rest assured, this project won't replace local templates, it will just add the possibility to use global ones. Sophivorus (talk) 21:26, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

  This should be comparable to Commons (probably at a smaller scale): files can be uploaded both globally and locally, with a local file overriding the global one if it exists. ~~~~
  User:1234qwer1234qwer4 (talk) 22:49, 19 August 2022 (UTC)

  @1234qwer1234qwer4 and Sophivorus: What if a global and local template have the same name? On Commons, the file can just be moved, but given templates usually have much shorter (and standardized) names, how would they be differentiated? – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 00:00, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Ilovemydoodle Given the way wikitemplates.org currently works, if a wiki has a local template called Edit, and wants to use the global template called Edit, they can:

  • Create a new local template with a new name (e.g. Template:Edit2) and call the global template from there
  • Edit the local template and replace it for a call to the global template, preserving the local parameter names to avoid breaking stuff

  The system should be much clearer if you check the Wikitemplates home page, the sample global template and the sample local template. I put quite a bit of time and love into the documentation, considering it's only a couple days old. Cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 03:24, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Sophivorus: I really don’t like the idea of having to change local template names just because of a global change. If this is required I will change to oppose. I propose a different solution: If a global template exists with the same name as a local one, the local one will take priority, to access the global one, you would use {{global:template}}. Thoughts? – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 03:28, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Ilovemydoodle I never said anything about changing local template names. This is not required at all. And what you're suggesting seems to be exactly the way the system works, except that with the prefix being "raw:Wikitemplate:" rather than "global:". Sophivorus (talk) 03:39, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Sophivorus: Could we change it to "global" as it is much more intuitive and less bulky? – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 03:54, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  Also, is it guaranteed that local templates will take priority? – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 03:57, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Ilovemydoodle Yes it's guaranteed. If you read the Wikitemplates home page you will understand. As to the prefix, unfortunately we can't change it (at least not at this stage). The "raw:" part comes from the way the scary transcluding works, so it'd need to be changed from core and that's not about to happen. As to the "Wikitemplate:" part, we could change that for "Global:" but I think "raw:Global:" is no better than "raw:Wikitemplate:" (considering the project is called Wikitemplates). I'm going to sleep now and got a rough weekend so I may not reply until Monday. If you want to understand more, I strongly suggest you register at wikitemplates.org and wikivideos.org to experiment, cheers! Sophivorus (talk) 04:06, 20 August 2022 (UTC)

  @Sophivorus: Thank you for the kind and helpful answer! I will register soon. – Ilovemydoodle (talk) 04:14, 20 August 2022 (UTC)