abstract
| - This page provides an index for a wide range of standard templates in use within this Wiki. Whether you are providing a custom message or a pastel box or are flagging articles, adding tags, or adding templates, this page also gives an overview of what subjects are covered within each heading. There are two main ways to use templates on articles: transclusion (also called "inclusion", and accomplished by using ), and subclusion (also called "substitution"). The former will include the content of on the fly whenever the article is loaded, while the latter will permanently insert the content of the template into the article. With substitution, even if the template content is modified at a later date, the article's content will not change. The common method for using template messages is transclusion, implemented by usage of a tag with the form {{template name}}, in whatever article or talk page one wants the template code/text to be shown. A less common usage is to implement an automatic one-time copying of a template's code/text to the location of a template tag; a method called substitution or subclusion, implemented simply by adding subst: as a prefix for the template name (as in {{subst:template name}}). Substitution is the preferred method for permanent notices (i.e., no probability that it will change) because it is less confusing, and it even helps to lighten the load on the database. Substitution has the further advantage in that a template's content may be de-linked from any associated category or slightly modified to suit the circumstances, such as when the template is used on a talk page. Transclusion is preferred for displaying material that is normally updated (i.e., high probability that it will change), that way, all the places it appears are updated in a single operation.
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