Far too many unused templates

[Politoed666]

Bulbapedia users:

Click the "Special Pages" link under the toolbox.

Click on "Unused templates."

Look how freaking many there are. What is the purpose of all this wasted server space? Wondering if I should just go and delete them, or what? Your thoughts?

 

[Maverick Nate]

Uh... some of them aren't used because whenever they are supposed to be used, they are subst-ed. They are listed on there because technically, no page uses them, the pages only use the coding.

Also, some, like the Template:TCG Pre-prerelease and Templateelete, are only used at a specific times: respectively, right before a TCG set is about to be released and whenever a page is not notable enough to stay.

 

[Martonimos]

Yeah, I can see that. Featured Articles, for example, isn't in use because we don't have them right now.

But there are also some that seem downright useless. There are a bunch at Template:Game/MainArticle/{{{Gamename}}} that are only the names of the games--Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire, for example, without even a Versions. I have no idea what these could ever be used for, and see no reason not to delete them.

 

[Politoed666]

Uh... some of them aren't used because whenever they are supposed to be used, they are subst-ed. They are listed on there because technically, no page uses them, the pages only use the coding.

Also, some, like the Template:TCG Pre-prerelease and Templateelete, are only used at a specific times: respectively, right before a TCG set is about to be released and whenever a page is not notable enough to stay.

Seems logical. However, I can assure you that that's not the case with all of them. Any way to distinguish between the templates that are in use but subst-ed or only used periodically, and those that aren't used at all?

 

[Maverick Nate]

Seems logical. However, I can assure you that that's not the case with all of them. Any way to distinguish between the templates that are in use but subst-ed or only used periodically, and those that aren't used at all?

I don't know of one, but if it seems important, keep it. If not, throw it out. If there are any problems about knowing or not if it is use-able, bring them up here, and we can go by those in a section basis on whether they stay or not.

 

[Martonimos]

You guys can always restore them if we realize after the fact that we've deleted one that we shouldn't have.

 

[evkl]

Are unused templates really taking up that much server space? I'd err on the side of caution, it's a few megabytes at most of data, and probably ten or twenty of bandwidth/month...

 

[Politoed666]

Are unused templates really taking up that much server space? I'd err on the side of caution, it's a few megabytes at most of data, and probably ten or twenty of bandwidth/month...

You've got a point. I suppose, although there are a lot of them, they aren't bogging down the server anywhere near as much as the old userspaces were, so I'll leave most if not all of them for the time being.

 

[TTEchidna]

I'm taking a few out. Some are old predecessors to templates we have now; some are partly useful these days.

We need to use some of these though. They can be used.