User:SHB2000/Why keeping templates to a minimum will fail

Although I'm open to anyone editing my userspace pages, this essay is potentially controversial; for that reason, I would prefer if the only edits to this page are minor copyedits without changing the tone. It has been indefinitely semiprotected for this reason. If this essay is too controversial to stay here, feel free to list it at Wikivoyage:Votes for deletion but please do not speedily delete this (though it would fail the CSD). Please also let me know on my talk page so I can move this essay to meta.

Before I start this essay, I should make it crystal clear that this essay is not aimed at anyone. This is just my personal opinion on the English Wikivoyage and does not represent the views of the wider Wikivoyage community.

For those unfamiliar with Wikivoyage's extreme, conservative template policy, "a template should be discussed prior to being created or modified". Yep, you read that, it should be discussed before being created or modified. I'll proudly admit that I've flouted this policy hundreds, if not thousands of times already (not an exaggeration – check my edits to the template namespace), and I don't intend to stop. Why? m:Ignore all rules – it's a global policy, and as the policy says "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining a project, ignore it." Does creating and editing templates hamper improving or maintaining Wikivoyage, even fixing the slightest syntax error? (Yes it does) For that reason, I'll always ignore it and the English Wikivoyage community can do nothing about it.

It's worth noting that the template policy hasn't changed since 2005, during the early days of Wikitravel. But unless you've been engulfed in a time capsule since 2005, I'm certainly sure you'll know that MediaWiki's technical capabilities have advanced and so should our template policy be accordingly updated as MediaWiki improves. But no, what happens on this wiki, is it has a dated template policy designed for a wiki almost two decades ago. This does reflect on how many new, original templates are widely used since the migration to Wikimedia. Simply speaking, apart from a few templates needed to use dynamic maps, and occasional outliers like {{rint}} or {{convert}}, what other templates created post-migration are widely used today (and please do let me know if there are some – I wasn't here during the early days of this site and I'm only getting my stats though page histories and discussions)?

If the English Wikivoyage's primary reason is it intimidates new users, then why do most other WMF projects not have issues with having a large number of templates? I'm not talking wikis like the French Wikivoyage where they use a lot of templates (which is fine in my opinion), wikis like the English Wikipedia, English Wikibooks, or Commons use many templates (way more than en.voy does), three different size wikis that have never had this issue before. From observations, if a newbie often sees a template that they've never seen before, they will often ignore it and move on. Few will get stuck and get bogged up because they've never seen that specific template before; in that case, you could use that argument advocating to not use templates at all. I'm sure no-one wants that.

There is also a loophole to the template policy that technically, just adding the code manually to get the same result. It's a bit counterintuitive, and in some cases, defeats the purpose of having a template, but if you're after a specific result that can only really be achieved using complex code, go for it.

So to summarise, avoiding the use of templates won't always work out, and in many cases, it doesn't. The wikis that don't have such a harsh, outdated template policy don't have this issue, but unless the English Wikivoyage community is willing to embrace change and be in line with the wider Wikimedia world, it cannot significantly expect to grow without making things harder for users accustomed to general norms across most WMF projects. There are loopholes within the policy, but thanks to the wording, m:Ignore all rules applies. At the same time, I don't blame anyone enforcing that policy – after all, that is what policies are for, but although I'm a strong advocate for following all policies, there's good reason why one shouldn't (it's even a violation of WV:PF for that matter), nor do I oppose the existance of certain templates (I'm not in love with many {{style}} templates, but that is not the point of this essay). Perhaps if/when I do evenually get the consensus to change the template policy (which I plan to do in slow increments), maybe we wouldn't have all these heated discussions for each template; if I don't and the English Wikivoyage gets a notorious global reputation for its template policy, then all I can say is, "I told you so".